In Your Shoes
by LucretiaDecoy
Summary: Hiei, Botan and Kuwabara break Suzuka’s latest invention and then try to hide their mistake. They must work together to fix the damage and keep their secret hidden, but that proves extremely difficult, especially when Yusuke finds out the truth.
1. Shorty's a Tripod

**A/N:** This fanfic concept is one of the many overdone ones, but I'm going to do it again anyway, just because I find it so much fun writing this type of story. I don't consider this a total crackfic, because it actually has a plot and everyone will be almost in character. Almost.

Set at the end of the series. Not a romance fic, though does contain small doses of romantic content, mainly Botan/Kurama and Kuwabara/Yukina but also a small amount of Hiei/Mukuro.

**This fic is incredibly crass and it goes places most fanfics don't and never should. You have been warned.**

**M-Rated for language, contentious opinions, twisted and varied sexual dilemmas and because every chapter of this fic is guaranteed to offend at least one person who reads it. Leave your dignity at the door before reading. **

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters in this fic, and nobody pays me to write this stuff. Unfortunately.

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**Chapter 1: Shorty's a Tripod**

Keiko slapped Yusuke's hand far harder than seemed necessary.

"Ow!" he protested, retracting his hand and glowering at her.

"You're not supposed to touch it, remember?" she replied.

Yusuke grumbled something derogatory about touching things under his breath but Keiko did not dignify his remark with a response. Yusuke meanwhile kept his eyes on the object on the table in front of him. Suzuka had warned him not to touch it, but why would anyone give something to someone and then tell them not to touch it? In Yusuke's opinion, it was worse than laying out hot food in front of someone who had not eaten in three days.

"You can touch it, just don't open it," Suzuka said as he returned to the room.

Yusuke watched the blonde demon sit down opposite him at the low table.

"Why are you giving it to me?" he asked.

"I figured you would know what to do with it," Suzuka replied.

Yusuke groaned.

"Why?" he demanded, slamming the side of one fist down onto the table.

The table rocked at his touch and the black velvet box slid a little closer to him. Keiko screamed and shuffled back, almost falling over completely in her attempts to distance herself from the box.

"Well you used to work for spirit world, didn't you?" Suzuka asked.

"Years ago, yeah," Yusuke replied. "This may surprise you, but they sacked me after I turned into a Mazoku. Something about spirit world not wanting demons working for them…"

"So you're familiar with Lord Koenma, right?" Suzuka responded, ignoring Yusuke's sarcasm entirely. "You can take this item to him."

"I don't get why you can't just destroy it!" Yusuke snapped impatiently.

"Because destroying it by any means will open the box. Even crushing it doesn't help. The power lies within the box, and whenever it's opened, no matter how – by taking off the lid, setting it on fire, blowing it up – the power is activated."

"So let's just blow it up."

"Blowing it up activates it."

"Yeah but the box will be ruined if we blow it up, so it can't ever be activated again after that, right?"

"Yes, that's exactly what the problem is. Yusuke, were you listening when I explained what this item is and what it does?"

"…I drifted in and out."

Keiko cried out in frustration and collapsed.

"I was listening," Kurama said, walking over to the table and sitting down at one end. "Yusuke, this box is very dangerous. Suzuka designed it to capture the powers and abilities of an opponent and transfer them into the user of the box, but his experiment has failed. The box does not capture powers and abilities, it captures souls. The power to do that is contained within the box. Opening the box by any means – even blowing it up with your spirit gun – will activate the power. The box will take the soul of the person who destroyed it, and with the box gone, we can't use its powers to return that soul to its rightful body. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, got it now," Yusuke said with a nod. "So we put the box really far away, somewhere remote – which around this temple shouldn't be too hard – and I blast it from a distance so it can't get me."

"It doesn't work like that," Suzuka instantly replied. "The force contained in this box won't rest until it takes the soul of the being that opened or destroyed it."

"…So we just find someone we hate and have them destroy the box?" Yusuke asked.

"No Yusuke," Kurama answered. "We take the box to Koenma and have him secure it in the spirit world vault."

"Things tend to go missing from the spirit world vault…" Yusuke grumbled.

"It's the safest and most sensible place for it," Kurama replied. "That box is a dangerous weapon in demon world or here in the living world. First thing tomorrow morning you should take it to Koenma and have him seal it away somewhere it won't be disturbed in spirit world."

Yusuke sighed but nodded regardless.

"Fine," he agreed. "I'll go there tomorrow morning."

"And until then, we should leave this room and not go near the box again," Kurama added,

"Fine by me," Yusuke agreed, standing up. "I only want to open it anyway."

"Yusuke!" Keiko yelped. "Are you stupid?"

"Who are you calling stupid?" he snapped.

Kurama turned to Suzuka and smiled patiently.

"You did the right thing taking it to us," he said. "Thank you for your honesty. We will secure it where it won't bring harm to anyone."

"Thanks," Suzuka replied. "It was supposed to be my secret weapon for the next demon world tournament. Guess I'll have to try again."

"Try again?" Yusuke echoed. "You're gonna make another soul-eating box? Are you crazy?"

Kurama quietly rose to his feet and left the room. Behind him Yusuke was continuing his rant, Keiko was continuing to admonish him for it and Suzuka was attempting to sound apologetic – in between checking his reflection in the back of a teaspoon and smiling proudly at what he saw. Ahead of him, Kurama could see and hear the others milling about the temple, most of them making as much noise as Yusuke, Keiko and Suzuka were: Kuwabara and Shizuru were arguing over something and Yukina was trying to play mediator, Genkai was feeding Puu – who was insisting on crying out cheerfully between each mouthful – and Hiei was darting about outside pretending to be training and uninterested by the goings-on inside the temple. Kurama passed them all until he reached the one person he sought, and he was both surprised and pleased to find her on her own.

"Good evening, Botan," he greeted her.

"Oh, hello Kurama!" she cheerfully replied.

He stopped at her side, resting his hands on the railings and looking out across the temple gardens.

"I was just admiring the stars," she said.

She pointed up at the sky, but the action seemed redundant as her hand was obscured beneath the long sleeve of her pink kimono. As she retracted her hand again, Kurama saw her curl her fingers around the inside of her sleeve in an almost childish gesture that he had often observed her performing, and seeing it always made him smile. She was such a caring, easy-going soul, and she was the first female he had met in his long life – as a demon and as a human – who knew everything that he was and was neither ridiculously impressed nor terrified by it. He had always felt at ease around her, and he had always admired that she was pleasantly pretty, in an easy, natural sort of way.

"Will you be returning to spirit world tomorrow?" he asked her.

"I'll have to take that magic box Suzuka made to Lord Koenma as soon as possible, but I was thinking about waiting a little longer before I go," she replied.

She turned to smile at him.

"As soon as I go back to spirit world, I'll have to go back to work, so I might try to stay here and prolong my little break!" she said. "Is that terribly bad of me?"

Kurama shook his head.

"Actually, I think it's a very good idea," he replied. "I'd like it very much if you were still here tomorrow night."

"Oh, okay," she said.

Then her smile wavered slightly and her cheeks started to turn pink.

"Any… Any particular reason why?" she asked.

She made the question sound innocent, but Kurama suspected that she already knew why he had asked her – though that only made her all the more endearing in his eyes.

"I'd like to have dinner with you tomorrow night, Botan," he said.

Her eyes widened slightly and her pink cheeks turned red.

"Oh," she said slowly. "Is Yukina cooking for us all tomorrow night too?"

"Perhaps Yukina is cooking dinner for the others tomorrow," Kurama said, releasing the railing and turning fully towards her. "But I was thinking that you and I could have dinner together somewhere else. Just the two of us."

He slipped one hand up a sleeve of her kimono until he found her hand, taking it in his and reaching his other hand over it. She looked down at his hands enclosing hers, looking mostly surprised but also slightly pleased and knowing, which confirmed Kurama's suspicions that her feelings were indeed the same as his.

"Alright," she said, lifting her head and looking him in the eye. "That would be super! What sort of thing did you have in mind? Just so that I know what sort of outfit I'll need to wear."

"I know a very nice restaurant by the edge of the city, and the best tables to be had there are on the roof, so be sure to dress for outdoors," he advised.

"Okay!" she said.

She smiled sheepishly and lowered her head, her eyes looking at their joined hands again.

"Um, I have to um…" she said, pointing a thumb back over her shoulder.

Kurama nodded his understanding and released her hand. She bowed to him politely and then hurried back inside, containing a squeal of excitement as she ran. She was overjoyed that Kurama had asked her out on a date – she had sort of suspected that he might, but always worried that he never would – and she simply had to tell someone else. Anyone else.

Unfortunately for them both, the first person she encountered was Hiei.

"Guess what Hiei?" she asked, grinning at him cheerfully.

He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion. He was shirtless and sweaty, presumably from his session of shadow fencing, and she could not help but notice the way his eyes twice moved from hers, checking over each of her shoulders in turn.

"I have fabulous news!" she continued.

Hiei sidestepped as though to cut past her but she copied his action, again blocking his path.

"Guess what it is!" she said.

He hesitated and then again tried to step to the other side.

"Stop being so evasive and anti-social, Hiei!" she snapped.

He narrowed his eyes further but still said nothing. Botan started to lecture him on good manners but fell silent when Kuwabara suddenly flew out of a nearby room and landed on the floor between them.

"Kuwabara?" Botan asked, leaning over him.

He looked like he had just gone ten rounds in a demon world tournament without rest.

"Kuwabara?" Botan said again. "Are you alright?"

"…Damn Shizuru…" he groaned, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Kuwabara?"

"Yeah Botan?"

"I'm going on a date with Kurama!"

Kuwabara's bruised face dropped and he gave her a look that was almost as condescending as the one Hiei was still giving her.

"Isn't it exciting?" she asked.

"…Sure Botan," he agreed.

"Could I ask you to do me a favour though?"

Kuwabara sat up, looking suddenly more alert.

"A serious favour?" he asked.

"A very important favour," she confirmed. "You know that magic box Suzuka brought here today?"

"Sure, yeah, what about it?"

"I was supposed to take it to spirit world tomorrow morning, but if I go back with it, Lord Koenma will make me go back to work, and I'll miss my date with Kurama. Could you watch the box for me until I get back from my date?"

"Hey, sure! You can count on me Botan!"

"Oh goody!"

"Hn, ridiculous."

Botan and Kuwabara both turned to glare at Hiei, who was in the process of rolling his eyes.

"That box was invented and built in demon world," he said. "It was created in demon world, and that is where it belongs."

"Now Hiei, surely even you must admit that it would unwise to leave such a powerful and dangerous device in demon world?" Botan returned.

"Yeah Hiei, get real!" Kuwabara added.

"Perhaps you're right," Hiei said to Botan. "Perhaps demon world is the wrong place for the device. But is leaving it in the living world, under the care of a love-struck, brain-dead, overly-curious idiot like this one really any better?"

"Hey!" Kuwabara protested.

"I trust Kuwabara!" Botan argued.

"I don't trust either of you, you're both too stupid and inconsiderate to be trusted with something as important as a box that can steal a soul," Hiei spat. "If you expect to take that box to spirit world, ferry girl, you better do so tonight, because if it's still there by morning, I'm taking it to demon world myself!"

"You'll have to get through me first, Hiei!" Kuwabara said, scrambling to his feet and leering over him.

"Hn, that's hardly a problem."

"Oh yeah?"

Kuwabara clawed his hands in the air over Hiei's head, but Hiei remained completely impassive.

"Boys, stop it!" Botan said, grabbing at Kuwabara's elbow and dragging him back to move in between them. "Let's not bicker! We're all friends here! And today is a most wonderful day, we shouldn't spoil it with petty arguing!"

Hiei and Kuwabara both muttered insults at her. She glared at them both in turn, and they both glared at her and each other. And then Kuwabara ran off.

"Where's he off to?" Botan asked, scratching her head in confusion.

"Where do you think, idiot?" Hiei scoffed.

He turned his back on her and started marching off in the direction Kuwabara had gone thundering in, leaving Botan even more confused than before: but she was not left feeling that way for long when she caught a glimpse of Kuwabara fleeing the room at the end of the corridor with a black box cradled in his arms.

"Kuwabara!" she cried.

Hiei disappeared from her sight as he took off after Kuwabara too. When she felt a wind passing down the corridor Botan realised that they had gone outside and she hurriedly summoned her oar, leaping onto it and shooting along the corridor.

"Hey!" Yusuke yelled after her. "What the hell's going on?"

"I'm handling it!" she sang over her shoulder at him before swerving around and aiming at the open door ahead of her.

Once she was outside, Botan circled once before spotting Kuwabara and Hiei, barely visible by the edge of the forest, Kuwabara hugging the box close to his chest defensively and Hiei pointing his sword at Kuwabara's throat threateningly. With a sigh of annoyance she shot over to join them, banishing her oar again and dropping to the ground beside them.

"Boys, let's not fight over the box," she said calmly.

"It belongs in demon world!" Hiei argued, his eyes still on Kuwabara.

"No way, you little punk!" Kuwabara argued back.

"I am taking the box to spirit world, and that's that," Botan reminded them both.

"You can't be trusted with it, you're a clumsy, stupid, ditzy, air-headed–"

"Leave Botan alone, shorty!"

"The only one less capable of taking care of that item is you, clown!"

"And you're the last person who can be trusted with anything! No way are you getting this box, Hiei! You'll just have another sulk and run away with it!"

"You should watch what you say."

"Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?"

"Are you threatening me?"

"I'll take you on, Hiei! Any time, any place!"

"How about right here and right now?"

"Fine!"

"Stop it!" Botan screeched. "Give me the box and stop fighting like a pair of children!"

She reached out and grabbed at the box, attempting to tug it from Kuwabara's grasp, not expecting him to resist and yelping in shock when he did.

"Kuwabara!" she said. "You agree that this should go to spirit world, don't you?"

"If I give this to you Botan, Hiei will just use his freaky forehead eye to hypnotise you and steal it from you!" Kuwabara replied.

"Don't be silly!" Botan said. "Hiei wouldn't do that!"

Kuwabara grumbled something Botan did not clearly hear, but apparently Hiei heard it as he smacked a hand onto the box.

"I'm taking this," he growled. "It belongs in demon world!"

"Yusuke agreed it should go to spirit world!" Botan argued.

"Maybe it should stay here in the living world!" Kuwabara said.

"Don't be stupid!" Hiei and Botan both said.

"I'm not stupid, you both are!"

Kuwabara tried to turn away from Botan and pull the box from her grasp but she stubbornly held on, as did Hiei.

"Be careful with that thing!" Botan warned him. "Don't you know what it's capable of?"

"I hear it devours souls," Hiei said, grinning darkly. "Maybe if I open it now, it will eliminate both of you!"

"Don't even think about it, Hiei!" Kuwabara warned him.

"Just give me the box!" Botan yelled, tugging at the box.

She paused and then tried to tug the box again, at the exact same time that Hiei made an attempt to take it from Kuwabara's hold. All three of them got a hold of the box and in an unplanned synchronised outward movement, they all pulled at it at the same time, the shape of it warping slightly before the whole thing broke apart in a brilliant flash of purple light that threw Kuwabara, Hiei and Botan to the ground.

And all three lay where they landed unmoving, their bodies robbed of their souls.

**

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Kuwabara blinked back the vestiges of sleep, feeling dazed and confused as his eyes began to focus on his surroundings. He was outside, by the edge of the forest beyond Genkai's temple, it was the middle of the night and he was aware that there was someone sitting nearby him. He inhaled deeply through his nose.

"Urameshi."

He slowly sat up, and turned his head to see Yusuke sat at his side, giving him a slightly strange look. And as he looked into Yusuke's questioning brown eyes, a very strange thought occurred to Kuwabara. He sniffed at the air experimentally.

"Ew, did you shower today?" he asked.

Yusuke's face twisted further but he surprisingly did not answer.

"I can smell you from here, Urameshi!" Kuwabara added. "You smell like…"

Kuwabara sniffed at the air again.

"Ew, like old gym socks, cigarettes and cheap aftershave!"

"Hey…" Yusuke muttered. "That's not your usual MO…"

Kuwabara eyed Yusuke over curiously before rising to his feet. He felt a little bit light-headed, and as he looked about himself he found that he could not really remember how he had gotten to where he was or why he was there.

"I haven't told anyone yet," Yusuke said to him. "But when Koenma finds out what you've done, he's gonna go ape-shit."

Kuwabara turned around to ask Yusuke what the hell he was talking about but stopped when he saw what Yusuke was holding in his hands: three broken pieces of a very familiar black box.

"Was it you or was it one of those idiots?" Yusuke asked him, pointing a thumb over one shoulder.

Kuwabara slowly moved his eyes to the two unconscious bodies lying behind Yusuke, his brain taking far longer to register the full horror of what he was looking at.

"Oh my God, I'm dead!" he yelled.

Yusuke flinched and scowled at him.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm dead!" Kuwabara wailed, grabbing his hands at his head, his eyes locked onto his own body, which was lying lifelessly behind Yusuke, next to Botan, who looked equally as dead as he apparently was.

"What?" Yusuke asked again.

"My body!" Kuwabara cried, hurrying over to stand by his own limp body. "What the hell happened? Why am I not in my body? I'm dead! I must be!"

"…What?" Yusuke asked.

Kuwabara growled in frustration – and he briefly wondered why the sound rumbled up and down his chest and felt strangely therapeutic – and he spun around, ready to yell at Yusuke for not understanding, but stopped short as Yusuke stood up.

"…Why are you so much taller than me now?" he asked meekly.

"…I've always been so much taller than you, Hiei," Yusuke solemnly replied.

"…What?" Kuwabara echoed.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Hiei?" Yusuke asked, sighing impatiently. "Did you break this box or not? And if so, did you use it on Kuwabara and Botan?"

"But… I am Kuwabara… And that's…"

Kuwabara was pointing a finger at his own fallen body, but as he looked down he could not help but notice that the hand he had outstretched was wrapped in bandages and attached to an arm considerably shorter than his own. He slowly lowered his head, seeing a short, muscular body dressed in baggy black pants and boots, a decorative katana tied to his hip with a red sash and a great length of bandages that ran from the middle of his upper right arm down to his fingers.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked in a low voice, lifting his head to look up at Yusuke – who was suddenly about a whole foot taller than him.

"That's what I wanna know, three eyes," Yusuke replied with a shrug. "I heard you, Kuwabara and Botan yelling, so came out here to see what was wrong, and found the three of you lying here with this."

He held up the remains of the box to illustrate his point.

"So Hiei: who broke it?"

Kuwabara looked down at his unconscious body again before moving his eyes to the hilt of the sword at his hip. He grasped onto it and slowly pulled out the blade, bringing it around to look down into its reflective surface.

"Oh my God…" he whispered. "I've turned into Hiei!"

"What?" Yusuke asked. "Gees Hiei, what the hell is wrong with you? You're acting so… Oh…"

Yusuke's eyes suddenly grew wide, and an array of emotions passed over his features, from shock to amusement.

"What is it?" Kuwabara asked, lowering the sword to look up at Yusuke again.

"Hiei used the box, didn't he?" Yusuke asked.

Kuwabara nodded, then shook his head and then shrugged. He had no idea what had happened or indeed what was happening now.

"The box was designed to steal an opponents powers and transfer them back to the wielder of the box," Yusuke explained. "But it doesn't do that. It steals souls and transfers them back to the wielder of the box. You're in Hiei's body, so obviously Hiei used the box on you and it put your soul into his body. So… Are you Kuwabara or Botan?"

Kuwabara looked down at Botan's lifeless form and his own, his brain again working too slowly for comfort.

"My soul is in Hiei's body?" he asked, turning back to Yusuke. "Does… Does that mean his soul is in my body?"

"I guess so," Yusuke replied with a shrug. "You woke up first because you have the strongest body and so you recovered the fastest. And, since you're not freaking out about having a dick now, I'm guessing you're Kuwabara and not Botan."

Kuwabara glared at Yusuke angrily and Yusuke shivered.

"Whoa, Kuwabara!" he said through a mischievous grin. "Careful there! You're getting good at doing the Hiei death glare already!"

He then laughed openly.

"This isn't funny, Urameshi!" Kuwabara yelled. "I can't stay in this body! I've got a date with Yukina tomorrow night! How can I go with her in this puny jerkface's body?"

Yusuke made a noise of disgust and shuddered, muttering something under his breath.

"What was that about incest?" Kuwabara asked.

The colour drained from Yusuke's face alarmingly fast.

"Shit, you've got his heightened sense of hearing too?" he asked.

Kuwabara looked about himself nervously, sweat bursting from his pores. He made to wipe a hand across his forehead on instinct, his palm dragging over material and then pausing as he suddenly realised exactly what his situation was.

"Oh my God!" he wailed. "I'm in Hiei's body! Oh God no!"

He clawed at the bandana around his head, pulling it loose and cringing as he felt the skin on his forehead crease and open up and his brain suddenly filled with a series of strange images in slightly distorted colours.

"I've got three eyes!" he sobbed, trying to put the bandana back on and mostly just getting it tangled in the impressive mass of spiked hair protruding from his head. "And my hair feels like doggy fur!"

"Don't be stupid, Kuwabara!" Yusuke snorted. "It does not feel like…"

Yusuke's voice drifted off as he began stroking at a piece of Kuwabara's hair.

"Ew, it does feel like a dog!" he muttered.

"And look at the size of my hands!" Kuwabara added, holding out his hands between them. "They're tiny! I bet I couldn't even open a jar of pickled bamboo shoots with these toddler hands!"

"Well, look on the bright side…"

"What bright side?"

"Well, you know… Small hands… Makes you feel like more of a man when you… You know…"

Kuwabara growled again as Yusuke gave a shake of his wrist by his crotch.

"Urameshi, this is serious, damn it!" he snapped.

"Okay, okay, careful!" Yusuke replied, holding up his hands in defeat. "Don't go letting out the dragon on me!"

"Oh my God, I have a dragon in my arm!"

Kuwabara tried to move his right arm as far away from his body as he possibly could, which only made Yusuke start snorting in amusement again.

"What do I do with it?" Kuwabara asked, frowning up at Yusuke. "Do I… Do I have to feed it? Does it need out for exercise, or to use the bathroom?"

"It's not like your cat, Kuwabara!" Yusuke replied. "Idiot…"

"I heard that!"

"You're gonna hear everything with those ears."

"I don't want these ears! Or this face, or these little hands, or this these short legs or this doggy hair or…"

Kuwabara stared down at himself for a long moment and even Yusuke turned away with a groan when he hooked his thumbs under the waistband of his pants and pulled outwards.

"Oh my God!" he said.

"I don't want to know," Yusuke quickly warned him.

"Shorty's a tripod!"

"Damn it, Kuwabara!"

"No wonder he's such an arrogant bastard… It's heavy, too and really–"

"Kuwabara! Stop touching Hiei's…!"

Kuwabara quickly retracted his hands, the waistband of his pants snapping back into place.

"When Hiei wakes up, I'm telling him you were playing with his–"

"Don't!"

Yusuke arched his eyebrows expectantly and Kuwabara started to look panicked again – a very amusing sight for Yusuke, as he had never seen Hiei's face so full of emotion in all the time he had known him.

"Wake up Hiei!" Kuwabara yelled suddenly, stumbling over to his unconscious body.

He dropped to his knees and grabbed handfuls of his shirt and began shaking himself. And Yusuke started to realise how confusing the situation was going to be if it was not immediately fixable. Suzuka said he did not know how to reverse the box's effects, but Kurama would probably know what to do.

"Wake up and give me back my body, you bastard!" Kuwabara yelled, shaking himself vigourously.

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself, Kuwabara!" Yusuke called over through laughter. "Give yourself a break!"

"You're not helping, Urameshi!"

It was incredibly funny being yelled at by Hiei's voice but without the threat of Hiei's likeliness to resort to manslaughter, Yusuke decided.

**

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**

Botan opened her eyes, if only to get visual confirmation of what her ears had just heard.

"You bastard!"

Botan gasped indignantly and drew back her hand, slapping it across Hiei's face. To her surprise, she was able to hit him hard enough to make his head snap to one side and to leave his cheek slightly reddened.

"How dare–"

She stopped and cleared her throat.

"How dare you–"

She cleared her throat again.

"Get your hands off of–"

Something was wrong.

"Oh dear!" she wailed. "What's happened to my voice?"

"You're in my body, you sneaky little bastard!" Hiei yelled into her face.

"Excuse me?" Botan echoed, glaring at him angrily. "Get your hands off of me, Hiei!"

"I'm not Hiei, you are!" Hiei replied.

Botan frowned. It was not like Hiei to play silly games.

"Unhand me at once!" she demanded.

""Unhand" you?" Yusuke echoed, leaning over her and frowning curiously. "Hey Kuwabara, that doesn't sound like something Hiei would say."

"He's just being awkward!" Hiei answered him.

Botan started to wonder if she was still asleep. She slapped at Hiei's wrists until he released her and then stood up, sighing heavily. She was by the edge of the forest, Genkai's temple in the middle distance, and it was clearly quite late: but she had no idea why she was there or how she had gotten there.

"Hey shorty, did you do this?" Yusuke said.

Botan turned to him, surprised to find that he was addressing her, and even more surprised to find that she could see the top of his head. When had he started shrinking?

Then she noticed what was in his hands.

"Oh no, the magic box!" she squealed. "Lord Koenma will kill me! Hiei, this all your fault!"

She pointed an accusing finger at Hiei, but her anger faded when he stared back at her with enormous, fearful eyes that looked far too expressive for Hiei.

"What did you just say?" he asked her.

"I said you broke that box, Hiei!" she snapped. "And what is wrong with my voice? Do I have an infection?"

She tried coughing, slapping a hand against her chest in the hope of loosing up whatever it was that was giving her a deep and rasping voice. At the third slap her hand paused, pressed against her chest. She slowly lowered her head and moved her other hand to her chest. She smoothed her hands over her front, surprised to see that she was dressed in men's clothes.

"Where are my breasts?" she asked, looking up at Hiei and Yusuke.

Yusuke burst out laughing, pointing at her with one hand and clutching the other to his gut as he doubled over from his hysterics.

"Oh God, you're not me?" Hiei asked Botan.

"What?" she echoed, turning to him curiously.

She turned a little too far and saw something that made her scream so loudly she scared a mass of wildlife out of the forest.

"My body!" she wailed, pointing at her own limp body, which was lying a short distance from where she was stood.

"Wait – you're Botan?" Hiei asked her.

"Of course I'm Botan!" she sobbed. "But why is my body over there?"

"Holy shit!" Yusuke said, his words barely discernible amid his laughter.

"Botan!" Hiei cried. "What the hell are you doing in my body?"

"What?" Botan echoed.

"You're not supposed to be in my body!" Hiei replied. "Hiei's supposed to be in there!"

"What?!" Botan shrieked.

Hiei clumsily drew out his sword and held it up in front of her. Botan stared for a long time at the reflection looking back at her, cautiously touching her hands to her face and then looking at her hands to confirm what she was seeing.

"I've turned into Kuwabara!" she cried. "Why have I turned into Kuwabara?"

"It was the box, Botan!" Hiei replied. "It stole our souls and put them back in the wrong bodies! I'm Kuwabara!"

"Oh no!" Botan sobbed.

She began openly crying, dropping down into a sitting position.

"Don't cry Botan!"

Botan ignored him and threw her head back, crying openly. She felt an arm around her shoulder and leaned into it on instinct, burying her face into Hiei's – or was it Kuwabara's? – bare shoulder.

"…Funny… Shit…"

Botan lifted her head to see Yusuke staggering about in front of them, pointing a camera phone at them.

"Gimme that, Urameshi!"

Kuwabara leapt up and snatched the phone from him, smashing it effortlessly in his hand. He slowly opened out his fist, looking down at the damage he had caused.

"Whoa… Cool…" he muttered.

Botan started to sniffle behind him and he turned to her.

"Please stop crying Botan!" he begged. "You're making me look like a total pussy!"

Botan stiffened, glaring at him angrily.

"Well excuse me, Mister Kuwabara!" she snapped. "And this is all your fault anyway! You ran out with that box! Speaking of which, where is it now?"

Yusuke, by now in tears from the force of his hysterics, held up the tattered remains of the box.

"Oh no!" Botan cried. "Am I going to be stuck like this forever?"

"Kurama will know what to do," Yusuke said, wiping a tear from one eye.

Botan gasped dramatically.

"You can't tell Kurama about this, Yusuke!" she hissed. "I'm supposed to be going on a date with him tomorrow night! You have to fix me before then!"

"Big deal!" Kuwabara snorted. "I'm supposed to be going on a date with Yukina tomorrow night. I can't go looking like this, can I?"

"Ew, no, that would be incest," Botan muttered.

"What?" Kuwabara echoed. "Why does everybody keep saying that?"

"Oh, no reason…" Botan said dismissively.

"You have to fix this before tomorrow night, Yusuke!" Kuwabara insisted.

Yusuke shrugged.

"I'm not the dumbass who broke the box," he said. "Which is surprising, actually…"

"Botan, you're gonna have to go on my date with Yukina!" Kuwabara said, rounding on Botan.

"Me?" she echoed.

"Yeah, Botan!" Kuwabara insisted. "You're in my body, you have to pretend to be me until we get this fixed!"

"Are you going to pretend to be Hiei until we get this fixed?" she asked sarcastically.

Kuwabara turned to Yusuke who shrugged.

"Hey, speaking of Hiei, where is he?" Yusuke asked.

"Well isn't it obvious where he is?" Botan sighed.

"Um…" Yusuke began.

"Think about it Yusuke!" she said snottily. "Kuwabara's soul is in Hiei's body, my soul is in Kuwabara's body, so obviously Hiei's soul is in my body."

Botan slapped a hand over her mouth and all three turned their heads sharply to Botan's unconscious form. For several seconds they stared at the ferry girl in silence. Yusuke was the first to react, scurrying over to her side and grabbing at her clothes.

"What are you doing to my body, Yusuke?" Botan demanded.

"It's Hiei," Yusuke giggled. "He's a ferry girl… I have to wake him up… I have to see his face when he finds out…"

Botan turned to Kuwabara in alarm.

"Hiei's in my body…" she said faintly. "He's going to kill me!"

"I'm in Hiei's body, Botan!" Kuwabara replied. "He'll kill me first!"

"He can't kill you, you've got his body!" Botan pointed out.

"He'll kill me to get it back!" Kuwabara argued.

"He can't have my body!" Botan wailed, tears welling up in her eyes again. "I keep my boobs in there!"

Kuwabara's eyebrows twisted and then Botan saw his eyes distinctly travel down her body to her crotch.

"Yeah…" he said slowly. "About that… Could you like, wear a blindfold when you use the toilet and have a shower?"

Botan looked down at the bulge in her pants, staring at it for several seconds before bursting into tears again.

**

* * *

**

Hiei awoke abruptly – and Hiei hated awakening abruptly – to find Yusuke clutching at him and shaking him, tears in his eyes and his entire body jerking.

"Get your hands off of me!" Hiei snapped at him.

Yusuke released him but then fell over, clutching at his stomach. Apparently he was amused by something rather than crying, which was slightly less disturbing. Hiei sighed regardless and tried to stand up, his feet catching in the swathes of silk he was bound up in. He stumbled and fell over, landing on his hands and knees. The ground was plain grassland, but for some reason, the fall had actually hurt.

And he had something blue and hairy hanging over one of his shoulders.

"Hiei?"

Hiei's head snapped up at the sound of a worryingly familiar voice, finding himself looking at himself.

"Whuh?" he grunted.

"Hey Hiei. The box, um… It sort of activated…"

Hiei slowly moved his eyes from the strange demon who looked exactly like him to the orange-haired idiot at his side, who was openly crying like a shameless child. That was odd. As undignified as he was, surely even Kuwabara had more pride than to behave like that.

"The box took out our souls and put them back in the wrong bodies, Hiei," the demon who looked like him said. "I'm in your body, Botan's in my body and you're… In Botan's body."

Hiei frowned.

"You're a woman!" Yusuke snorted.

"Shut-up, fool!" Hiei snapped at him.

He softened slightly. Why did he sound like a woman?

Hiei lifted his right arm, readying himself to point a finger at the intruder who looked like him and warn him to leave, but the sight of a mass of pink silk hanging from his arm made him stop short. He slowly looked down at himself, growing increasingly alarmed when he saw that he was dressed in a pink kimono. How had someone managed to do that to him without his noticing?

And why did he have breasts?

Hiei poked a finger at one of the mounds on his chest, a girlish squeal escaping his throat involuntarily as he touched something that made his whole body flinch and shudder.

"Don't you dare touch my boobs!"

Hiei grunted in confusion as Kuwabara lunged at him, only to be tackled to the ground by his lookalike.

"Don't do it, Botan!" his mysterious doppelganger said. "He'll kill me – I mean you – I mean my body – and I have to go on a date with Yukina tomorrow night!"

"You're not going anywhere with Yukina!" Hiei warned the impostor.

Kuwabara gasped and pointed at Hiei.

"You'll have to go on my date with Kurama!" he said.

"…You're dating Kurama?" Hiei asked.

"Yes!" Kuwabara replied, sitting up and pushing Hiei's lookalike off of himself. "Oh, let me guess: you don't think I'm good enough for him, is that it?"

Yusuke howled out a laugh that almost sounded painful.

"I didn't know Kurama liked men," Hiei replied.

"No!" Hiei's lookalike said quickly. "No, no! I'm not dating Kurama! You are!"

Hiei's face dropped.

"I am not!" he snarled.

"No, not you you, you know, you you."

"…What?"

The impostor sighed and then brightened as though an idea had occurred to him. He drew out his sword and Hiei tensed, grabbing at his own hip, growling when he found himself without a weapon.

"Look at your reflection," the impostor said, holding the sword upright in front of him.

Hiei stared at the sword, silently wondering why he could see that stupid ferry girl's face in it.

"The magic box took our souls out of our bodies," the impostor said. "It put your soul in Botan's body, it put Botan's soul in my body and it put my soul in your body."

Hiei snatched the sword from him, leaning closer to it.

"Is this true?" he asked.

When he received no reply he turned to Yusuke expectantly, finding him lying on the ground on his back, laughing uncontrollably.

"It's not funny, idiot!" Hiei snapped at him.

He made to start disputing the whole situation, but when he noticed the broken black box by Yusuke's side, he started to realise that it might not be so ridiculous as it had sounded at first. He slowly turned back to the two faces watching him, studying each one in turn. The fact that the person who appeared to be Kuwabara was in tears and the person who appeared to be Hiei was looking dumb, it did seem as though the ferry girl was in Kuwabara's body and Kuwabara was somehow in Hiei's body. Leaving Hiei in Botan's body.

"We have to fix this," he said sternly. "I have an appointment with Mukuro tomorrow, and I can't very well visit her in this body."

"Ha!" Botan said, pointing at Kuwabara.

"Huh?" Kuwabara grunted.

"Stop pulling that face!" Hiei warned him. "You're making me look retarded!"

Kuwabara turned to him, his face still set in the same look of ignorance.

"You have to go on a date with Mukuro!" Botan sneered at Kuwabara.

"…Who the hell is Mukuro?" Kuwabara asked.

Hiei groaned. This was going to be hell.

"Yusuke?" he said, turning to the one unaffected person of their group.

"Hey Urameshi, what do you think about all of this?" Kuwabara asked.

"And no mean jokes!" Botan warned him. "Tell us something helpful and constructive!"

Yusuke sat up, wiping more tears of laughter from his eyes and attempting to look serious.

"What I think?" he asked.

The others all nodded.

"I think this is some of the funniest shit I've ever seen," he confessed. "I don't think it's possible to buy entertainment this good!"

"Idiot!" the others all shouted at him.

**

* * *

**

In the next chapter of Ghost Fighter our heroes face a dilemma when Eugene runs out of hair gel and he's late for a date with Jenny. But it's not all bad news as Alfred discovers that he is growing hair "down there" and Vincent is just delighted to learn that there's a new Baskin Robbins opening in his neighbourhood. Meanwhile, Dennis teaches Suzzie and Jeremiah how to play hopscotch and Jericho and Charlene try to figure out why George has such a weird Japanese name, unlike the rest of the cast.

**A/N:** I'm writing this fic now. I've been holding myself back and writing so much emo drama, I need to just… Write this crap to release the tension.


	2. Succulent DoucheBag

**A/N:** **This fic goes places most fanfics don't and never should. Contains contentious opinions and uncensored humour abound. You have been warned.**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters in this fic, and nobody pays me to write this stuff. Unfortunately.

**Recap:** In the last chapter of Ghost Fighter, Eugene, Alfred, Dennis, Vincent and Charlene decided to form a pop band and they auditioned for American Idol. Simon Cowell gave them a positive appraisal and they advanced to Boot Camp, but things went rapidly downhill from there when they were asked to perform Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold" and the title of the song brought back traumatic memories of Vincent's tragic childhood. Dennis tried, for a full half hour, to coax him down out the tree he went to sulk in, but even the offer of an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby was not enough to bring Vincent down, and the gang failed to advance to the next round.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 2: Succulent Douche-Bag**

Yusuke coughed infrequently as the group headed back to Genkai's temple.

"I can't believe you're still laughing about this, Yusuke!" Kuwabara's voice said behind him.

"I'm not laughing any more, Botan!" he replied without turning around. "I'm seriously choking!"

"On your own rudeness?" Hiei's voice asked.

"No Kuwabara, I laughed so much I started crying, and then I inhaled some of my own tears, and I've got that nippy feeling you get in your windpipe when you accidentally breathe in water at the pool!"

"Stupidity is as stupidity does," Botan's voice spat at him vindictively.

"Okay Hiei, calm down."

"Excuse me Yusuke, but aren't you forgetting something?" the real Botan asked him.

Yusuke stopped just shy of the first step up to the temple and turned to face the tall redhead body that was containing the ferry girl's soul.

"We're not telling anyone else about this," she reminded him. "You must refer to me as Kuwabara, you must call Kuwabara Hiei, and you must call Hiei Botan."

Yusuke pursed his lips in the vain hope of containing a smirk.

"This is serious, Urameshi!" Kuwabara insisted.

The sight of an overly expressive and mildly desperate look on Hiei's face was almost too much.

"For once the idiot is right," Hiei agreed. "I don't intend to have to deal with that snivelling brat Koenma and his inevitable tantrum when he finds out that I was present when those two idiots broke the box."

Yusuke snorted. Botan turning her nose up in the air and glaring down it at him through thinned eyes as though he was a piece of something unpleasant on the sole of her sandal was simply too much.

"Excuse me, but you were just as much to blame for breaking that box as Kuwabara was!" Botan reminded Hiei.

"Yeah, that's right Hiei, you little punk!" Kuwabara added. "And hey! You broke it too, Botan!"

"Hn, ludicrous," Hiei grunted, flicking his long blue ponytail over one shoulder. "First of all, neither of you two idiots should ever have touched that box. And secondly, Kuwabara, you might need to rethink your witty one-liners: I'm easily ten inches taller than you now."

Kuwabara gasped and looked down at himself.

"Hey Hiei, how tall are you exactly anyway?" he asked.

"That's not important," Hiei spat. "It never was, you fool!"

"He's four feet ten," Botan answered. "Not including his hair."

She ruffled Kuwabara's hair as she spoke and he rolled his eyes.

"Don't touch my hair like that, woman!" Hiei snapped.

"I'll touch whatever I want to!" she argued back.

"Then so will I!" he growled, grabbing at his chest.

She yelped and began waving her hands about in a limp-wristed fashion, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Stop that!" she begged.

"Don't hit him, Botan!" Kuwabara quickly said. "He might hit me back and mess up my face!"

"I'm hardly going to hit him, am I?" Botan snapped. "He's in my body! I don't want to mess up my face either!"

She huffed and whimpered pitifully as Hiei grinned at her and continued groping at himself.

"Well fine then!" she eventually said.

Kuwabara squeaked and doubled over as she grabbed at his crotch.

"Get his hands off of me, woman!" Hiei snarled, instantly stopping his tormenting act.

"You keep your hands off of me, and I'll keep these hands off of you," she replied, releasing Kuwabara and folding her arms smugly.

"Botan, how could you?" Kuwabara asked weakly. "You better wash my hands in bleach now!"

"Ugh, you got the easy end of this deal, Kuwabara!" she sighed. "At least you didn't get a sex change!"

"But I'm four feet ten, Botan!" he replied. "That makes me a legal midget!"

"What?" Hiei echoed.

"It doesn't make you a legal midget, Kuwabara!" Botan groaned.

"Damn right it doesn't!" Hiei muttered moodily.

"It makes you a legal dwarf," Botan finished.

Kuwabara and Hiei rounded on her with glares that made even Yusuke flinch.

"Now let's just get back inside and go to bed," Botan said. "Quickly and quietly. We can sort this whole mess out in the morning when we're all thinking more clearly."

"I need to go to the bathroom," Kuwabara muttered under his breath. "Hey Hiei, if I close my eyes, will you take it out and aim it down the toilet for me?"

"Absolutely no way!" Botan roared. "What if somebody sees the two of you? How would I explain myself if someone saw me handling Hiei's… Absolutely no way!"

"I'm too tired for that anyway," Hiei said casually.

"Good," Botan said, nodding her head. "You should just go straight to bed."

"I think I need to take a shower first," Hiei replied. "A long, hot, soapy shower…"

Botan snapped around and glared down at him.

"You will not, mister!" she warned him. "You will not remove any part of my clothing under any circumstances!"

"What about when I need to use the toilet?" he asked.

"Then I'll…"

She paused, frowning in thought.

"I don't want to have to explain to Yukina why my body was in the shower with Botan!" Kuwabara warned her.

"Yes…" Botan said slowly. "I wouldn't want Kurama seeing me getting soaped up by Kuwabara's body either…"

"Let's just all agree to close our eyes when we go to the bathroom," Kuwabara suggested.

"Great idea," Yusuke said, clapping his hands together. "Except that might not work for you, Botan."

"Me?" she asked.

"Yeah…"

He leaned closer to her and she corresponding moved closer to him, trying to ignore the way Kuwabara stretched onto his tip-toes and tried to join them.

"Kuwabara has a bit of the old… You know…" Yusuke whispered. "You need to put medicated lotion on it twice a day, or it burns like a bastard."

"Oh my gosh!" Botan gasped.

"It doesn't feel itchy to you right now?" Yusuke asked.

Botan gasped and began wriggling around.

"Oh my, it is itchy!" she wailed.

"You liar, Urameshi!" Kuwabara snapped. "I do not have che–"

He cut himself off and glared at Hiei, who was chuckling quietly to himself.

"He's just messing with you, Botan," Kuwabara insisted. "I don't have any infections!"

"Really, Yusuke?" Botan asked Yusuke. "Because it's actually very cruel to toy with a girl's feelings like that!"

"Don't cry, Botan!" Kuwabara wailed. "You're making me look pathetic!"

"Now you know how I feel!" Hiei snapped. "All your whining is making me sound like a pre-menstrual teenage girl! And stop pulling those stupid faces!"

"This is never going to work!" Botan snivelled. "Kurama's so clever, he'll see right through us!"

"It's okay Botan, we can do this!" Kuwabara insisted.

"I can certainly do this," Hiei snorted. "How hard can it be? This woman is the classic two Vs."

Botan stopped crying instantly and turning to Hiei.

"The two Vs?" she asked.

"Vapid and vacuous," he flatly replied.

She gasped.

"Well it's not like being you is so hard, Hiei!" Kuwabara said. "All I have to do it sulk all the time, and sit in trees and glare at people and pretend I'm superior!"

"You're right, this will be easy!" Botan said. "All I have to do is fawn over Yukina, let Yusuke beat me up three times a day and just generally be socially awkward!"

"…That's not funny, Botan," Kuwabara grumbled. "I was defending you!"

"Well then, now that's sorted, let's get on with this," Hiei said, stomping up the steps of the temple.

Botan paused, tilting her head slightly as she watched him go.

"One more thing, Hiei!" she called after him.

"What now?" he asked, looking back over his shoulder at her.

"Could you maybe try to walk like a woman?" she suggested. "You know, instead of walking like you need a wheelbarrow to support your massive–"

"Whoa, Botan!" Yusuke cut her off.

"Well that is how he walks," Botan said with a shrug. "It's never usually so obvious because of those baggy pants he wears, but in a kimono it looks quite absurd."

"Well hey, since we're on the subject, do you think you could try walking like a man, Botan?" Kuwabara asked.

"There's nothing wrong with the way I walk, Kuwabara," she haughtily replied.

"But you're mincing, Botan," Kuwabara complained. "You're making me look kinda fruity."

"Well excuse me!" she snapped.

Hiei grumbled a few curses under his breath and then continued on into the temple, ignoring the frantic cries for him to behave like a lady from Botan. He was not about to start flouncing about like that idiot ferry girl usually did. And, frankly, by not lolloping around like an idiot he was doing her a favour. Her manner of walking had always been one of her most annoying traits in Hiei's mind. All that exaggerated swaying of her hips and unnecessary flicking of her hair was just beyond infuriating.

"Ah Botan, there you are."

Hiei stopped abruptly, his eyes locking onto the tall redhead standing in a nearby open doorway smiling at him in the way a human would usually smile at a drenched puppy.

"I was actually hoping to get your advice for tomorrow night," he asked, his smile widening slightly. "My mother bought me two new shirts, and I can't decide which I should wear for our date."

"You let your human mother dictate which garments you dress yourself in?" Hiei spat back.

This was a side of Kurama he had not previously been aware of, and frankly he did not want to be aware of. Kurama's smile faltered slightly, and his eyes took on a mildly offended look before narrowing in that way they did when he was suspicious. Hiei sighed quietly as he realised his mistake, and he focussed his attention on reading Kurama's mind in an attempt to see if the fox had figured him out yet. It was always a gamble trying to read Kurama's mind, since he was an expert at disguising his true thoughts.

It was also impossible to read anyone's mind without a jagan eye.

"I don't care what you wear," Hiei grumbled.

One of Kurama's eyebrows twitched and again Hiei realised that he had said the wrong thing.

"I mean it's not important to me," he tried. "Just so long as you do wear something…"

"Botan, are you feeling alright?" Kurama asked, a frown darkening his already intense eyes.

"I feel super, Kurama," Hiei flatly replied.

"Okay then…" Kurama said slowly. "So which shirt do you think would be best?"

He held up two shirts on hangers.

"Green or black?" he asked.

"Wear whatever you want," Hiei replied, forcing a smile. "I'm sure you'll look fabulous either way, you… Succulent douche-bag."

Hiei groaned and stomped on. He did not look back, but he did not need to look back to know that Kurama was confused, as he clearly heard him drop one of the shirts he had been holding, and Kurama was never clumsy.

Maybe being Botan was not going to be so easy after all: but admitting the truth, admitting that the box had put his soul into Botan's body, meant dealing with Koenma and having to face Mukuro in the body of a flighty ferry girl, which was something he absolutely refused to ever do.

**

* * *

**

Botan was sat on the edge of her bed – or rather, Kuwabara's bed – in a pair of boxer shorts and a vest, and she was trying her hardest not to cry whilst her new roommate, Yusuke, was trying his hardest not to laugh.

"Remember to watch out for morning wood," Yusuke called over to her.

"Excuse me?" she echoed, looking back over her shoulder at him.

He was laid in his bed, on top of the sheets, the pillows piled up haphazardly between the headboard and his head, and his face was buried in a magazine of dubious content.

"Morning wood," he said again. "It's a man thing. You get an erection when you wake up."

"That's a myth, Yusuke!" Botan snapped irritably. "Stop teasing me with such silly little lies!"

Yusuke slapped his magazine down against his chest and turned to look over at her, looking serious for the first time since she had awoken to find herself in Kuwabara's body.

"Botan, I'm not shitting you!" he insisted. "It's a biological fact! It's like reflex erection! It's… Reflection!"

Botan threw him a withering look but he continued to look quite ardent.

"And watch out for wet dreams, too," he added, picking up his magazine.

"Oh goodness, I thought those only happened to young adolescent boys!" Botan gasped, crawling onto the bed and kneeling herself down facing Yusuke.

"Nope," he said, burying his face into his magazine again.

"But why does it happen?" she whined.

"Build up of excess sperm," Yusuke bluntly replied. "If you don't let it out at least once every three days, it finds its own way out."

"Okay, so how do I let it out without it just randomly leaking out and messing up the bed?"

"Have a wank."

"…Excuse me?"

"Have a wank."

Botan touched a finger to the corner of her mouth and rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling in thought. After several seconds of racking her brain she finally found the answer she was looking for.

"Are you suggesting that I masturbate, Yusuke Urameshi?" she asked tightly, pushing her fists against her hips indignantly.

"Yeah," he replied. "But do it in the bathroom, I don't want to have to see it. You can borrow this magazine once I'm done with it."

Botan yelped.

"Oh my goodness are you…?" she squeaked. "Are you…? Are you masturbating right now?"

Yusuke slowly lowered the magazine to give her the sort of look she usually only got from Hiei.

"Surprisingly no," he said in a low voice. "My hands are on the magazine, and I'm covered up."

"But you said the magazine was for… I'm confused…"

"Here, take a look through this and see how it makes you… "Feel"…"

Botan yelped as Yusuke threw his magazine at her and it slapped against her face. She glowered at him indignantly as she picked it up and straightened it out. He had turned onto his side to face her, propping himself up on one elbow and resting the side of his head on his upturned palm.

"I may have Kuwabara's body, but it's still me, Botan, on the inside," she sternly reminded him.

He snorted.

"Hey Botan, I just thought of something," he said.

"Keep it to yourself if it's rude," she warned.

"It's not rude," he said, feigning a hurt look.

"I bet it is…" she muttered.

"It's just a fact."

"…Alright then, what?"

"You've got Hiei inside you tonight."

Botan's face dropped and Yusuke rolled onto his back again to laugh at her. Again.

"Well maybe that's so, but Hiei's got Kuwabara inside him tonight!" she snapped.

Yusuke's laughter became offensive and obtrusive in volume.

"You're such a jerk, Yusuke!" Botan grumbled, looking down at the magazine in the hope that the contents would distract her.

Her eyes almost popped out of her head at what they found. The images in the magazine Yusuke had been reading were primarily of naked women doing what seemed like highly improbable things involving vegetables, ping-pong balls and beer bottles.

"This is disgusting, Yusuke!" she concluded, glaring over the top of the pages at Yusuke.

He rolled onto his side to face her again and lifted himself up onto one elbow.

"It doesn't turn you on?" he asked. "Not even a little bit?"

"Why would it?" she asked darkly.

"Well, now that you're a man…"

Botan groaned and lowered her eyes to the magazine again. She flicked through the pages, finding every page littered with similar smut and filth. Towards the end of the magazine she found an adverts section and she slowed down slightly, eventually stopping when she reached one particular full-page advert. She stared at it for a long time before realising that the magazine had changed shape, the spine bending up towards her.

"Botan…" Yusuke muttered. "What are you looking at?"

"Why?" she asked, looking over at him.

His face was contorted as though he was disgusted with her. He nodded at her mid-section before turning away from her completely. Botan lifted the magazine up over her head and screamed at what she uncovered.

"Calm down!" Yusuke yelled, throwing a pillow at her. "Just… Learn to control it! Think about something unsexy, like a guy in a thong or something."

"…That's making it worse!" Botan cried.

Yusuke stared at her for a long time, his face slowly changing from one of bored disgust to one of anxious concern.

"Why are you pitching a tent anyway?" he asked quietly. "What did it for you?"

"…What?" she asked.

He sighed and climbed out of his bed. He reached over and snatched the magazine from her and she did not even try to stop him. Instead she grabbed up the pillow he had thrown at her and laid it over her crotch to hide what was happening down there, only to groan as the pressure sent a rush of excitement through her abdomen.

"I'm never going to get used to this, Yusuke!" she wailed. "You have to fix this! Quickly!"

Yusuke did not answer her. He was looking at the magazine.

"Yeah…" he muttered, turning the magazine around to show her the page she had been staring at. "Kuwabara isn't the sort of guy who gets a raging hard-on from looking at ads for creatine bodybuilding supplements."

"Oopsie!" Botan said weakly.

Yusuke shook his head and turned away from her.

"Well it will stop happening when you start fixing this mess!" she argued. "And you have to do it before tomorrow night, remember? There is no way I can let Hiei go on my date with Kurama!"

"And there's no way you can go on Kuwabara's date with Yukina," Yusuke sighed, clambering onto his bed.

"Why not?" Botan asked. "I would behave like a perfect gentleman!"

"Yeah, but the thing is, they're meant to be going to see that new film with Takashi Sorimachi in it…"

"Ooh, I adore Takashi! He's so dreamy!"

Botan sighed and smiled to herself, cuddling the pillow she was holding and allowing herself to wallow in her daydreams about the movie star until she felt the material of her boxer shorts positively straining to contain her newly acquired genitalia.

"Oh dear…" she said, looking down at herself. "If that happens in the cinema…"

"Exactly," Yusuke said.

Botan lifted her head to ask him how she could stop it, but he had started laughing again.

"You heartless menace!" she hissed, hurling Yusuke's pillow back at him.

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara drew back the curtain. It was barely getting light outside, and he was wide-awake: apparently demons did not need as much sleep as humans did. He dragged his feet as he trudged across the room to the door, rubbing a hand at his chin experimentally. Apparently demons also did not grow facial hair.

He walked out into the hallway, yawning and stretching his arms above his head. He was starting to feel his energy levels rising in much the same way they would after drinking too much caffeine, and he wondered if that was also what being a demon felt like. He decided to just have a shower – he was going to have to face dealing with Hiei's naked body eventually, and at least if it was clean he did not have to worry about demon body odour. Was demon body odour more powerful than human body odour, he wondered? Everything else about demons was more powerful and so maybe their smell was too. He had also considered not washing until he had his own body back, since it was only Hiei that would seem dirty if he did, but he knew that Yukina quite liked Hiei, and so for Yukina's sake he decided to just wash.

Kuwabara stopped by the linen cupboard. He had already opened the door, and directly in front of him was the shelf housing the spare bedding. The towels were on the top shelf, which was about six feet high, and, even when he stretched onto his tiptoes, his fingertips barely reached the towel at the top of the pile. Kuwabara had always been tall and he was usually the one other people asked to retrieve things from high shelves, and so for the best part of two minutes his brain refused to process the fact that he could not actually reach the top towel. Eventually he came to accept his circumstance and instead took hold of the towel at the very bottom of the pile, which he could just manage to grip onto the edge of. He tugged hard and shortly found himself crumpled onto the floor beneath a mountain of towels.

He groaned and muttered a few complaints before digging his way out of the mess and standing up. He looked about himself at the fallen towels, he looked up at the shelf and then he stopped short, his nose twitching against his will as a series of new smells began invading his senses: cigarette smoke, jasmine and green tea. Before he had turned in the direction of the smells his brain had already produced an image of who he would find there: but it was still surprising to him that he was now able to identify people by their smell, especially when faced with someone he had known all his life.

"Hey, short dark and lonesome," Shizuru greeted him.

She was standing a short way down the hall from him, one shoulder leant against the wall and one leg crossed over the other. She looked like she had been up since the night before.

"We have to stop meeting like this," she said, smirking in amusement.

Kuwabara stared at her silently as she pushed herself off of the wall and started towards him.

"It looks like it might be nice out there today," she said, crouching down beside him and gathering up the towels.

She began refolding them and stacking them up on the floor. Kuwabara slowly crouched down and started to copy her actions. He had thought that pretending to be Hiei in front of Kurama would be the hardest, so why could he not even do it in front of his sister, who barely knew Hiei and would probably not even notice if he messed up?

"Hey half-pint, are you feeling alright this morning?" she asked him. "This is the seventeenth time I've had to rescue you from the towels, but this is the first time you've ever helped!"

Kuwabara slowed to a halt and blinked in confusion.

"Not that I'm not grateful," Shizuru said with a shrug. "I only do this because you usually leave the mess behind you and I think it's disrespectful to make a mess of someone else's home like that. But I guess manners aren't a high priority for you demons, right?"

"Yeah that's right, fool!" Kuwabara said, standing up and pretending to look offended.

"And there's the charm," Shizuru muttered.

Kuwabara hesitated, watching her as she picked up a bundle of towels and stretched up to replace them onto the top shelf. In his own body, he had finally grown taller than his sister when he was twelve years old, and so suddenly being so much shorter than her made him feel like he had been thrown back in time to the point in his life when he still could not brush his own teeth properly on his own.

"Seventeen times?" he asked.

"Who's counting though, right?" she replied, turning around and crouching down again to continue her task.

"Well obviously you are, sis," he said.

She paused, mid-fold, curtains of honey-brown hair mercifully hiding her facial expression from Kuwabara's line of sight as he inwardly cursed himself for his mistake.

"Sis?" Shizuru eventually said, lifting her head to look him in the eye. "What was that for? Surely you're not mistaking me for Yukina?"

"Why the hell would I do that?" Kuwabara snapped. "Yukina's dainty and pretty and kind you're big and mean and bossy!"

Kuwabara flinched in expectation of receiving a smack – the usual result of him snapping at his sister so – but instead Shizuru sat back onto her heels and titled her head to one side to regard him as though she was trying to decide on something.

"Don't be mad at Botan," she eventually said. "It wasn't her that told me. I saw the video Koenma gave to Yusuke years ago when Yukina was kidnapped by Tarukane. My brother wasn't in the room at the time, but I was, so I found out from Koenma, not Botan. And if you don't want to tell Yukina that you're her brother, that's your business. Though you probably shouldn't walk around like that with those two hiruiseki hanging out visibly, since even from a distance it's obvious that they're exactly the same."

Kuwabara was numb. He grabbed a hand at the point Shizuru was pointing at and yelped softly as his fist closed around two hiruiseki stones. He slowly lifted up his hand until it was directly in front of his face and then opening out his fingers to inspect the stones. They were identical. And one of them was definitely the one Yukina had given to Hiei when she had asked him to find her brother.

Hiei was Yukina's brother?

"Oh, now I get it…" he said in a low voice, releasing the stones and letting them fall back down against his chest. "That's why it's incest if I go on a date with her in this body…"

"…What?" Shizuru muttered.

**

* * *

**

Botan smiled reassuringly at Yukina, but her gesture did nothing to stop the ice maiden from staring at her almost fearfully from her position sat next to her on the train.

"Are you alright, sweetie?" Botan asked her.

"I'm fine thank you, Kazuma," she muttered back.

Apparently Kuwabara's date with Yukina was during the day, as they were going to the matinee showing of the film, and as the train ride to the city centre was over two hours long, Botan had been forced – after a long, cold shower and dealing with Yusuke laughing at her a lot – to go on the date. She had not seen Kuwabara that morning, and she was glad, because she had been furious when she had seen that he had only taken one change of clothes to Genkai's temple, forcing her to dress in blue jeans, a plain white T-shirt and a casual jacket. It was not really the sort of clothes to wear on any sort of date – daytime or otherwise – not to mention the fact that the jeans were too short in the leg, the T-shirt was too tight around the neck and the jacket would not zip up over her broad chest and shoulders. Who bought Kuwabara his clothes? His mother? How pathetic!

"It's very interesting what you, um, did to your, um, hair today," Yukina said.

She was as softly spoken as ever, but Botan was coming to realise that, although she was meek around everyone, apparently Yukina was more confident around Botan than she was around Kuwabara, as she sounded slightly more nervous.

"Yes, I was sick of that teddy boy look, it made me look like an extra for "West Side Story"," Botan said. "So I decided to try something a little lighter. Rather than using half a tube of wax to turn my hair into a tunnel, I chose to use a light styling gel and keep it flat on top. I think it looks better down like this, covering the temples. He actually has quite a big forehead. When I came out the shower this morning and combed the hair back I revealed the whole thing, and it was like looking at Cro-Magnon man."

"Cro… What?"

"Actually sweetie, do you mind if we stop off at the mall on the way back? I'm pretty sure even I could find a shirt to fit this neck…"

Botan ran finger around the collar of her T-shirt, almost choking herself in the process. How had it fitted over her head, she wondered?

"You-you want to go shopping?" Yukina asked. "For clothes? With me?"

"Sure, why not?"

Botan turned to smile cheerfully down at Yukina, and as she saw how much lower down than her Yukina was and the way the little ice maiden was looking at her, Botan suddenly realised the problem: it was unlikely that Kuwabara ever wanted to go clothes shopping, least of all with a girl.

"I thought that maybe you could help me chose something," she said slowly, hoping to cover her mistake. "Because I just want to look good for you, my love."

That sounded pathetic enough to be something Kuwabara would have said.

"Oh, well…"

Yukina turned her head away, but as Kuwabara's body was so tall, even when sat down, Botan just had to crane her neck slightly to see that Yukina had brought her fist up to her mouth in an apprehensive gesture.

"I just wanted some new clothes, Yukina," Botan tried.

"In that case I should get some new clothes too," Yukina said, turning back towards her.

Yukina kept her head down, but even through her hair Botan could see the redness in Yukina's cheeks.

"I feel a little silly sometimes when we go into the city," she whispered softly. "All the other girls wear such exciting clothes, but I just have my kimonos."

"There's nothing wrong with a nice kimono, Yukina!" Botan said sternly. "It's a traditional outfit that has never gone out of fashion! Just look around yourself at the next cultural festival you go to! And besides, it takes a fine figure of a woman to wear a kimono well, and I've always thought you looked just lovely in yours."

"Oh Kazuma, stop it!" Yukina said. "You're embarrassing me!"

She hid her face in her hands and Botan quirked an eyebrow at her.

"I was just telling you how pretty you are," she said flatly. "Stop being so modest."

Yukina parted her fingers slightly and peered through them at Botan.

"Seriously," Botan insisted.

She retrieved Kuwabara's wallet from his jacket pocket and opened it out, her eyes growing large as she uncovered the sizeable wad of cash within.

"Well," she said. "So much for the struggling student, pleading poverty. There's enough money in here to buy us both a new wardrobe full of clothes."

Yukina lowered her hands from her face and smiled delicately up at Botan.

"You've been working so hard, you've earned that money, Kazuma," she said. "Please don't waste it on me."

"Don't be silly, sweetie!" Botan argued. "There's a stupid amount of money in here! I don't even know how there can be this much!"

"…You've been working nights at the fish-gutting factory, haven't you?"

"The fish-gu…"

Botan's face slowly dropped. Well that explained why Kuwabara had been stinking of raw fish the last few weeks.

"Oh poo…" she muttered.

**

* * *

**

Hiei glared at the window. He had been looking out of it, but for the past five minutes he had been distracted by the sight of the old lady reflected in the glass, standing behind him watching him with an unreadable expression.

"What do you want, Genkai?" he asked, turning to face her.

He made no effort to sound like Botan.

"I want you to stop sitting on my damn windowsills and mourning the outdoors like a cat in heat," Genkai snippily replied.

Hiei narrowed his eyes at her.

"I'm waiting for Yusuke," he said.

"Well how about you wait for him somewhere else," she replied, folding her arms stubbornly. "Like in a chair."

"I'll wait where I want, you won't order me around," he snapped.

"Listen dimwit, unless you want everyone else to find out that you screwed up and broke the box, I suggest you stop acting like yourself and start at least trying to look like Botan."

Hiei faltered slightly.

"How did you know?" he asked suspiciously. "Did Yusuke tell you or did you sense my soul in this body?"

"Neither, Hiei," Genkai replied. "First of all, you're the only one who ever sits on windowsills like that and secondly Botan isn't in the habit of wandering around in her underpants and one of your shirts with no bra underneath it."

Hiei narrowed his eyes again.

"I can see your nipples from here," Genkai added, apparently understanding his unspoken question. "Go and get dressed in something respectable and stop moping about. Botan doesn't mope."

"No, she irritates and interferes," Hiei spat bitterly.

"Unless you're in here to wash dishes, get out of my kitchen!"

Hiei growled but Genkai was completely unfazed. She was looking at him like he was a human child that had just wet itself: it was the sort of look he usually gave Botan.

"I've seen you fix this sort of problem before, old woman," he said as he slid down off the windowsill. "I've witnessed you returning souls to bodies. You did it with that idiot boy who trapped us in that mansion with his stupid word games. Can't you put my soul back into my body?"

"I lack the ability to remove a soul from a body," Genkai replied. "I could put your soul back into your body if it had just been removed, but it's already been put into another body, so there's nothing I can do. Maybe if you hadn't broken the box we could have used it again."

Hiei sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Well obviously we would have used it again," he grumbled. "That would have fixed this matter, wouldn't it?"

"Not necessarily," Genkai casually replied. "It would have swapped your souls, but not necessarily back to the right bodies. If you used that box again now, you might end in Kuwabara's body."

Hiei quickly ran through the pros and cons of being in Kuwabara's body in his head, and was mildly surprised when he reached the conclusion that it was actually better to be stuck in the ferry girl's body than the apish human's.

"You and I have one thing in common, Hiei," Genkai said, awakening him from his thoughts. "We're both pessimists. You know that it could be worse, and if you don't fix it fast, it probably will get worse."

Hiei nodded and then started to walk off, stopping again as Genkai grabbed at his arm as he passed her.

"Where are you going?" she asked when he looked down at her questioningly.

"I have to pretend to be this idiot," he replied, pointing at his face. "So I'm going to get ready for my date with Kurama."

To his utter horror, the old lady started to laugh.

**

* * *

**

In the next chapter of Ghost Fighter, Eugene is furious to learn that his mentor Jeremiah has been secretly having a secret affair with Victoria. Elsewhere, Dennis learns some important things about his changing body when he secretly watches Charlene and Jenny practise kissing with each other, and Suzzie has had enough of Alfred and Vincent always bickering, and so she suggests they have a dance off to finally end their fighting by once and for all determining which of them has the better hairdo. SPOILER ALERT: Alfred wins using his own fresh new spin on the Funky Chicken.


	3. Follicular Erection

**A/N:** **This fic goes places most fanfics don't and never should. Contains contentious opinions and uncensored humour abound. You have been warned.**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters in this fic, and nobody pays me to write this stuff. Unfortunately.

**Recap:** In the last chapter of Ghost Fighter, the gang had a surprise birthday party for Vincent, and he was ecstatic when they gave him the one present he had always wanted: his very own pony! Unfortunately Vincent was allergic to the pony and he developed a disfiguring rash that facilitated the need for the application of much lotion. Jenny willingly volunteered for this task, and spent several hours locked into a room with Vincent fulfilling the duty. The gang decided to let Alfred keep the pony instead, since he was the next best suited to riding around on a miniature horse, and Suzzie became concerned when Charlene started going through an emo phase that involved wearing too much eye make-up and becoming a cam-whore.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 3: Follicular Erection **

"Psst!"

Yusuke stopped walking but did not turn around.

"Psst!"

Yusuke sighed.

"Psst! Hey, Urameshi! Over here!"

Yusuke doubted that he would ever get used to hearing Hiei talking like a human, and, in the brief moment before he turned around, he thought that Kuwabara speaking through Hiei's mouth was the weirdest thing he would ever see or hear Hiei do: but that changed when his eyes landed on Kuwabara.

"Shit, Kuwabara, what the hell did you do to Hiei?" he blurted out, almost falling over when he saw the state Hiei's body was in.

"I washed him," Kuwabara hissed. "And now I realise that Hiei's never washed before."

Yusuke twitched in three different places, one after the other.

"What am I gonna do?" Kuwabara whispered to him. "I can't let the real Hiei see himself like this!"

Yusuke started to look thoughtful and Kuwabara sighed, feeling a little relieved at last. He had showered very early and gone out for a run in the hope of burning off all the excess energy he had built up – most of which had been nervous energy, resulting from his learning that Hiei was Yukina's missing brother – and he had been so caught up in enjoying having the ability to run faster than a train and trying to fathom the fact that Hiei was related to Yukina that he had failed to notice what had become of Hiei's hair.

"Maybe some hair gel would help?" Yusuke said, his voice sounding strangely small and far away.

"I tried that already!" Kuwabara replied. "It doesn't work! Nothing does! I even tried using my sister's hair clampers!"

Yusuke's face twisted.

"I don't know what the right name for them is, I'm not a girl," Kuwabara muttered.

"Isn't it just naturally…?" Yusuke began.

"Yeah, I thought so too," Kuwabara replied. "But I guess not, since it dries like this every time I wet it. Whatever Hiei had in his hair that was keeping it up like that has been washed out, and now I don't know what to do."

"Maybe Keiko would know," Yusuke suggested. "She's really smart, and she's a girl, so she's gotta know all about how to do things with hair."

"I already asked her."

"And she was no help?"

"No. She kneed me in the crotch and called me a creep."

"…What did you say to her?"

"Nothing! I just asked her if she would help me with my follicular erection, and she went crazy on me!"

Yusuke's eyebrows twisted upwards.

"You asked her to help you with your erection and you don't understand why she might be upset?" he asked.

"I don't know, I'm so confused!" Kuwabara wailed. "I'm stuck in this silly little body while Botan's going on my date with Yukina and I can't fix this stupid doggy hair and now I look like I'm about to audition to be the seventh member of V6!"

"…What the hell is V6?"

"You don't know who V6 are? They're only the most popular boy band since… Never mind…"

Kuwabara cleared his throat awkwardly and tried to think of a way to change the subject of conversation and divert fully away from his accidental confession, but before he could think of anything of substance to say Yusuke had started laughing. Again.

"Urameshi, this really isn't funny!" Kuwabara snapped irritably. "I can't go to see that Mukuro lady looking like this! You have to help me rebuild Hiei's hair!"

Yusuke started to laugh louder and he wrapped one arm around his middle and rested the other against a nearby wall as he started to double over from the force of his hysterics.

"You cheeky son of a bitch…" Kuwabara growled.

He sighed and stomped back into the bathroom, where he was once more greeted by Hiei's reflection. He looked decidedly less like Hiei without the vertical hair, but, as he had always hated Hiei's hairstyle, the fact that his hair was suddenly sitting flat and spayed downwards and outwards instead of upwards and inwards was not really bothering Kuwabara. Even the fact that Hiei would not be happy if he saw what Kuwabara had done to his hair was not bothering him. It was the fact that, without the spiky hair, he was suddenly eight inches shorter.

Maybe a nice hat would fix the problem. Kuwabara stared at the mirror until he started to see Hiei looking back at him wearing a hat that would compensate for the height boost he was usually granted by his hair, and when he saw the result, he decided against the hat idea. Hiei already looked like a whimsical character from a Tolkien novel without the addition of a wizard's pointed hat.

Kuwabara picked up a tube of hair gel – luckily there was always a plentiful supply of the stuff at Genkai's temple, since both Yusuke and Kuwabara himself used it by the gallon – and stared at it thoughtfully before slowly looking up at his reflection again. Eventually he decided that, as he would be going to demon world and Hiei would not see him anyway, he might as well style his hair in a way that he felt comfortable with.

With a grin of delight, Kuwabara began dispensing mass amounts of hair gel over the top of his head.

**

* * *

**

Botan sniffed sharply and blinked to clear the tears from her eyes. A quick glance around the movie theatre told her that she was the only person stood clapping, and so she slowly stopped and sat back down again, smiling nervously when she found Yukina staring at her in confused disbelief.

"It was a very moving film," she tried to explain as she wiped a tear from her chin. "I could really… Relate to the main character. And I thought that Takashi gave a fantastic performance."

Yukina nodded slowly and then shook her head.

"I don't understand," she concluded. "I thought you hated Takashi."

"Why would I hate Takashi?" Botan echoed. "How could I hate Takashi? He's absolutely gor… Gor-reat at acting!"

Botan swung a fist in the air in a gung-ho fashion and grinned nervously, feeling especially stupid as she had misjudged the effect that swinging a massive fist like Kuwabara's could have, and she had punched over the half-empty box of popcorn that had been lodged between her seat and Yukina's.

"You said you hated him because he's a pretty boy, and you hate all pretty boys," Yukina continued. "You said he probably brushes his hair five times a day like Mister Kurama does."

Botan squeaked out a noise of surprise.

"Kurama brushes his hair five times a day?" she asked.

"That's what you told me, Kazuma," Yukina plainly replied.

"Oh my goodness, how delightfully metro!" Botan gushed, pressed a hand to her chest and then sighing dreamily.

"M-Metro?" Yukina muttered.

Botan met Yukina's eyes, the stark realisation of who she was meant to be returning to her so quickly she felt as though she had been hit by a train.

"Yes…" she said slowly. "So, um, shall we go shopping now?"

Yukina nodded and smiled and Botan took her response as sign that she had forgotten or else decided to overlook her minor indiscretion. Together they stood up and joined the queue of bodies filing out of the cinema. They made their way out onto the street outside in silence and only stopped when three young men walked into their path, blocking their advance. They looked vaguely familiar to Botan, and she thought that they had perhaps once attended the same junior high school as Kuwabara and Yusuke had.

"Hey Kuwabara," one of them said. "Out with your girlfriend again?"

Yukina sidled closer to Botan as the boy nodded at her. They did not seem especially intimidating, but Botan doubted that Yukina understood enough about human men to know when they were just joking around and when they were genuinely bad.

"Yes, I am," Botan said. "Will you excuse us, please?"

"Check out mister manners!" another of the boys said.

Botan flinched as he punched her in the upper arm. It had not hurt, despite her expecting it to, which she was silently glad of, as it was her own instinct to hit back when she was hurt, and she suspected that punching a human with the physical strength she now possessed could possibly land her in prison for murder.

"Well maybe if you demonstrated some manners yourself, you would have a girlfriend too!" she said instead.

All three boys gave her strange looks, but she was starting to lose her temper – she was still a little emotional about the prospect of being stuck in the body of a human man who apparently hated Takashi Sorimachi – and so she continued.

"Maybe if you cleaned yourselves up, changed your clothes, stood up straight and used a little more eloquence in your speech, you would be more successful with the ladies!" she snapped.

They looked around each other and Botan started to worry that she was probably not really acting like Kuwabara would in such a circumstance.

"Wow, you've really got it bad for her," one of them said. "I guess I can see why. She's really pretty and you're… Doing something really weird with your hair today…"

"Doesn't matter how pretty she is," another one said. "There's no excuse for it: Kuwabara, you're totally pussy-whipped."

The boy was on the ground before Botan realised that she had slapped him across the face. Slapping someone across the face was probably not the sort of thing Kuwabara would ever do, she realised, but because she had used an open-palmed, frantic, misaimed, loose-wristed attack, she had done minimal damage, and so the strength difference between Kuwabara and the boy she had just attacked had been significantly reduced.

"You asked for that!" she said sternly when he stared up at her in disbelief. "There's no excuse for it: you don't use language like that in the presence of a lady!"

All three boys continued to glare at Botan in confusion, and, deciding to take advantage of their confusion before they came to their senses and decided to start a fight with her, she made her exit.

"Come along, Yukina," she said, grabbing Yukina's hand. "We don't need to be bothered by these ruffians."

She dragged Yukina on down the street, hurrying her to the nearest crossing and ignoring the changing traffic lights to run across to the other side. She paused there to look back and check that they were not being followed before sighing in relief and continuing on at a more leisurely stroll. She walked on for several seconds in that manner before becoming aware that Yukina was staring up at her so intensely, that she was not looking where she was going, and as a result of such she was stumbling frequently at her side.

"Are you alright, sweetie?" Botan asked, glancing down at her.

"You're very bold today, Kazuma," Yukina answered her.

"I'm always bold," Botan replied. "I'm a fighter."

"You're always brave, but you've never been so bold before," Yukina said.

"I don't understand the difference," Botan said.

"You never back down from a fight, but you've never called me "sweetie" before, you've never told those boys to stop when they start teasing you about me, you've never cried and clapped at the cinema before and you've never held my hand before."

Botan stopped walking so abruptly Yukina carried on two steps more before staggering back as her hand caught in Botan's.

"Sweetie – I mean Yukina – we've been dating for years," Botan pointed out as Yukina steadied herself in front of her. "How is it possible that we've never held hands before?"

She held up her hand – still clutched around Yukina's – to demonstrate her point. Yukina looked at their hands and started to blush slightly.

"Well, we're really just friends, aren't we?" she asked sheepishly, keeping her eyes on their hands.

"Are you kidding me?" Botan echoed. "You're the reason he joined the spirit detective team in the first place! He said after Maze Castle that he would never fight again, but that all changed when he saw you!"

Yukina's eyes moved to Botan's and, as she saw the frown on her face, Botan realised her mistake.

"I mean me," she corrected herself. "I said I would never fight demons again before I saw you and fell in love with you."

Yukina looked startled and Botan started to lose her temper.

"You do already know that Kuwabara loves you, Yukina," she said firmly. "Kuwabara tells you that he loves you almost every day!"

To her surprise, Yukina smiled.

"Yukina knows now," she said, touching her free hand to Botan's cheek.

"Yu…"

Botan slowly started to smile as she realised that Yukina was making a joke, since she apparently thought that Botan's continual references to Kuwabara were just Kuwabara jokingly referring to himself in the third person.

"Yes…" she said. "Very good… Now let's go shopping!"

Botan turned around and began dragging Yukina on again, but this time Yukina made more of an effort to keep up with her.

"Can we go to the nice clothes shop beside the sushi bar?" Yukina asked. "Botan said it's the best clothes shop in this city."

"Oh, well, Botan is very intelligent, she would definitely know what's best!" Botan cheerfully replied.

"Mister Hiei said that Botan has the intellectual capacity and visual appeal of a failed low class concubine."

Botan stopped abruptly and again Yukina failed to notice, staggering back as her hand caught on Botan's.

"Mister Hiei said that?" Botan asked quietly.

"Yes," Yukina replied, gazing up at Botan with an open and unwavering honesty that only made the insult hurt all the more. "I didn't understand what he meant. I usually don't understand Mister Hiei, but he's saved my life in the past and I'm very grateful to him."

Botan narrowed her eyes and clenched her jaws tightly together. She had to fight not to crush Yukina's hand as her hands both tried to curl into fists on instinct.

"I know you dislike him Kazuma, but Mister Hiei is a man of honour," Yukina added.

"Mister Hiei is a prick and I despise him!" Botan blurted out.

"Kazuma, please! Don't say such mean things!" Yukina implored. "Mister Hiei is not as cold as you think he is, he's helping me find my brother, remember?"

"Mister Hiei isn't helping you at all!" Botan yelled. "Because Mister Hiei is your brother!"

**

* * *

**

Hiei glanced back and forth between the two sets of eyes watching him. One pair of eyes looked amused and knowing and the other set looked like a bubbling Crockpot of nervous energy.

"What you two want?" he spat irritably.

"Why did we have to hear from Yusuke that you're going on a date with Kurama tonight?" Keiko blurted out.

She was almost bouncing on the spot and her grin was starting to grow to psychotic proportions.

"You finally got the courage to ask him out, huh?" Shizuru asked.

She had a sort of smug air of previous knowledge about her: it was the same sort of look she usually wore when she found him under a pile of towels in the morning.

"Where are you going?" Keiko asked.

"And I hope you're not wearing that?" Shizuru said, waving a finger at Hiei's ensemble, which still only consisted of a pair of whiter-than-white panties and his own black shirt, which was slightly too short in the body, too loose around the shoulders and waist and surprisingly well-fitted around the chest.

"Yes," Hiei dryly replied. "I thought I'd go out dressed like this. I rather like the idea of having every human man in this city eyeballing me."

Keiko frowned and paled but Shizuru laughed.

"You're so funny, Botan!" she said. "Do you want to borrow something of mine? I bought a new dress last week for something I had to go to with my work, and I'll probably never wear it again, so you could wear that if you like?"

"No, no, no!" Keiko cried. "You have to get something new, Botan!"

"She doesn't have time for that," Shizuru argued. "By the time she gets a train into the city, goes shopping, finds the perfect outfit and gets back here, it will be past midnight and she'll have turned back into a pumpkin."

"What the hell is a pumpkin?" Hiei asked.

Botan had not mentioned anything about having another form she reverted to at a certain time of night, and he was certain he had not changed shape the night before.

"You're right," Keiko said to Shizuru, both girls flatly ignoring Hiei's question. "We need time to work on her hair and make-up."

"Exactly," Shizuru agreed. "It's important that we get the right look for her. What sort of message do you want to send to your lover boy tonight, Botan?"

Hiei tried to growl, but the noise that came out was quite pitiful: instead of his usual wolf-like rumbling it was the sort of pathetic trilling noise a highly strung Chihuahua would make.

"I want to send a message that says "touch me, and I will kill you"," he said when he realised that his growling was not having the desired effect of conveying his disgust.

"You're going Dutch tonight then?" Keiko asked.

"…What?" Hiei echoed.

"Honey, if you go to a nice restaurant with a man, you have two simple choices: split the bill or put out," Shizuru frankly replied.

Hiei took a moment to translate her human jargon-laden speech into something comprehendible, and then promptly wished that he had not bothered, as in this case, ignorance truly had been bliss.

"Leave me alone," he said quietly.

He needed time to think. Was Kurama approaching this "date" with Botan as a human would or as a demon would? Humans apparently had some complex set of rules for these occasions that involved choice of outfit, types of food, the exchange of money and sex, whereas demons just had sex.

Hiei felt the contents of his stomach rise: for once in his life, he hoped that Kurama was thinking as a human and not as a demon.

"Right, we'll come back later," Shizuru said, apparently not quite understanding that Hiei had meant for her to leave him alone forever. "You have a think about it and let us know what you want to do."

Hiei sneered at her but she merely smiled back and put her hands on Keiko's shoulders, steering her out of the room. Once they were gone, and had closed the door behind them, Hiei released a long sigh and approached the wardrobe at the back of the room. Unlike the rest of the guests at Genkai's temple, Botan was granted the privilege of having a bedroom to herself – apparently because she stayed there more often than the others – and whilst it had been nice not to have been forced to sleep alongside Keiko, Shizuru or even Yukina the night before, Hiei was a little concerned to have learned that the idiot ferry girl spent so much time around his sweet, naïve and impressionable sister. But that thought was still not as disturbing as the one that was playing increasingly on his mind: why did Kurama want to get involved with such a ridiculous creature?

Hiei opened the wardrobe doors and groaned as he found the interior to be lined with the sort of clothing he was accustomed to seeing the ferry girl wear: it was neither the wardrobe of a warrior nor was it the wardrobe of an enchantress, though Botan could hardly ever be described as either. His choices of clothing included jeans of an unflattering cut, baggy sweaters in silly colours or kimonos in either pink or red with a gaudy design of gold swirls: all unattractive and impractical. What was wrong with Kurama?

Hiei slammed the wardrobe doors shut – and annoyingly he did not possess enough strength to take them from their hinges, rather they simply banged back into place – and he turned towards the small shower room at the side of the bedroom. If nothing else, he could at least wash out the stench Botan usually possessed – in her body he could not really smell it, but in his own body he had always been able to smell her from a great distance, as her odour was a unique and pungent cocktail of cherries, fresh air, grass and bamboo. Why did she smell like cherries, grass and bamboo, he wondered? The fresh air he could account for, as she spent a lot of time flying around the skies of both the living world and spirit world – though the fresh air smell was possibly the most offensive to him of all, because it reminded him of the living world and spirit world, and he despised both places. But why did she smell of cherries, grass and bamboo? Did she eat cherries whilst rolling around in a field of grass and bamboo shoots?

Even with a human nose Hiei found the answer to one of his questions upon entering the bathroom, and he shortly got a visual confirmation of what he could smell as he noticed the bottles arranged on a small shelf by the shower: cherry blossom shampoo, cherry blossom conditioner, cherry and strawberry shower gel, cherry stone facial scrub and cherry and almond body lotion. How ridiculous.

Hiei shed his clothes and started for the shower but stopped partway there as he noticed his reflection in a nearby mirror. He slowly turned towards it, allowing his eyes to run over every inch of it in detail, unable to stop the small smirk that curled up the corners of his mouth. It was not that he had not seen his share of naked women or that Botan had an especially attractive body, rather it was the sudden realisation that he actually now had a woman's body as his disposal without the hassle of having the woman to go along with it. With the exception of Mukuro – and to a lesser extent Genkai – Hiei had never met a woman who was not an idiot, and getting his hands on a woman had always involved at least some degree of listening to a shrill voice talking about some nonsense he did not care for. But not now.

He pressed his hands against his stomach and began running them over every part of his body – or rather, her body – his smirk widening as he realised that, not only was he getting the joy of touching a woman's body with his hands, but he was also feeling the pleasurable sensations associated with being touched.

Hiei then realised something he had never given any thought to before: if he was a woman, he would never need anyone else, instead he would simply lie about naked and touch himself all day.

Maybe this soul-swapping thing was not so bad after all.

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara straightened up and dragged the back of one hand across his lips. A short way ahead of him Yusuke was kicking at stones on the ground, his hands in his pockets. Yusuke was part-demon himself, but either his sense of smell was not as keen as Hiei's or else he had a stronger constitution for foul smells than Kuwabara did, because, despite having only been in demon world for twenty minutes, Kuwabara had thrown up three times already because of the stench, whilst Yusuke remained completely unaffected.

"I don't remember it smelling this bad when we came here to fight Sensui," Kuwabara called over to Yusuke.

"You had a human nose then," Yusuke called back. "It just smells like sweat, blood and death when you're a human. Now that you're a demon you know it's much more than that. It's not the smell that's making you sick, it's knowing what it is that's making you sick."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Kuwabara replied.

But almost as soon as the words had left his mouth he realised that what Yusuke had said did actually make sense: the smell was bad but he could stand it, it was the images that were flicking through his mind that were bothering him. He had dismissed them as psychic visions, but he should have known by the vile and extreme nature of them and the distinct feeling of fear and dread that came with them that it was something more than that.

"Right," he said, walking over to join Yusuke again. "So, uh, this Mukuro lady is Hiei's girlfriend, right?"

"I wouldn't exactly use the term "girlfriend"," Yusuke replied. "But it's the same basic principle. She's a fair woman, but she's not the type to put up with any pointless shit so… Just don't talk and you'll be fine."

Yusuke sniggered and started to run again. Kuwabara took off alongside him, again musing over the fact that he actually had to hold himself back to keep pace with Yusuke, who had, in recent years, become far faster than him in his own body.

"What if she wants to, you know, have sex?" Kuwabara asked as they ran.

"You've been thinking about having sex with Hiei's lover?" Yusuke asked. "Do you want to die?"

"No, wait, hear me out!" Kuwabara protested. "I don't mean because I want to do it, I mean more like I probably wouldn't be able to. I couldn't do that with anyone else's girlfriend, not even Hiei's. It goes against my code of honour. And besides, no woman is really attractive to me but Yukina."

"You're such a loser, Kuwabara," Yusuke snorted. "And for the record, if Mukuro decides that she wants to have sex, she'll just take if from you whether you want to give it to her or not."

"Shut-up, Urameshi! It's physically impossible for a woman to rape a man!"

"You've never met Mukuro!"

Kuwabara started to fall behind Yusuke as he lost some of his momentum. As Yusuke sped on ahead of him he heard his friend's laughter echoing through the air around him, and looking beyond the source of the laughter, Kuwabara saw a large, bug-like building taking form on the distant horizon. He still had no clue what to expect when he met Mukuro – he was sure that Yusuke was just winding him up when he had described her as "lean, mean, missing half her body but still deliciously sexy" – and he was starting to feel that build up of excess energy. He ran faster to catch up to Yusuke, but even as he levelled with his friend he still felt like he had energy to burn.

"I'll take you as far as the gate," Yusuke said to him. "After that, you're on your own. I don't usually visit this place, it would look suspicious if I went in there with you now."

"You got us into this mess Urameshi, the least you could do is stay with me!" Kuwabara argued back.

"Hey newsflash: you broke the box, not me!" Yusuke sarcastically replied. "And besideds, you're a big boy, you don't need me to hold your hand… Well, maybe you're not so big lately…"

"Screw you, Urameshi!"

Kuwabara leapt at Yusuke, the speed of his launch after running so fast making their collision quite devastating, and sending them both tumbling over each other. But even as they rolled over the hard ground, Kuwabara knew that what was happening was the answer to relieving that strange feeling of excess energy he had been suffering from.

"If you wanted me to kick your ass again, you should have just said so!" Yusuke said, pushing him off.

Kuwabara quickly pounced at Yusuke again and began punching at him, almost laughing in delight when he found that he could, for the first time ever, actually manage to hit Yusuke and he was even able to block Yusuke's counters.

Maybe this soul-swapping thing was not so bad after all.

**

* * *

**

Botan clapped her hands over her mouth. She was angry with Hiei, but even that did not justify her telling Yukina the truth about their relation. It was not her place to say such things, and Kuwabara did not know the truth, so it was doubly wrong for her to have said it. And yet strangely, Yukina looked unfazed by her outburst.

"I didn't realise you knew," she said. "I didn't think you would have been so disrespectful towards my brother, because you are my friend, Kazuma."

"I um… Hiei and I are just both big personalities," Botan began awkwardly. "And when two big personalities come together, sometimes they just… Wait… Why aren't you shocked?"

"I do know that Hiei is my brother," Yukina replied, her tone slightly changed and the mildest hint of irritation appearing on her face. "And I know that he knows that he's my brother. He knew I was looking for my brother and he never volunteered to tell me that he was the one I was searching for, and when I found out for sure that he was my brother, I gave him the chance to tell me: I gave him my hiruiseki, I asked him to find the identical stone and I told him that I despised my people for casting my brother out as a baby. He didn't tell me then, even though I gave him the ideal chance to, so I think maybe he just isn't ready to be my brother yet. When he's ready, he'll return my stone to me."

"Didn't he already try to return the stone to you once before?" Botan asked.

"No," Yukina replied.

"Oh."

"He's tried three times before. Every time he tells me my brother is dead, and I refuse to accept his story or my stone."

"Well, Yukina, the thing about Hiei is that he's actually quite stubborn… If he doesn't want to tell you something then he never will."

"Being stubborn is a family trait."

Botan flinched involuntarily as something cold passed over Yukina's ordinarily sweet and innocent eyes.

"All I have to do is wait," she said quietly. "He is the one who has the difficulty of maintaining his lie."

"Right…" Botan said nervously. "Remind me never to lie to you, Yukina!"

Yukina smiled and the cold look melted from her face in an instant.

"You would never lie to me, Kazuma!" she said cheerfully. "Your honesty is one of your many admirable qualities and one of the reasons why I like you so much."

"Oh, well, you flatter me…"

Botan laughed nervously, all the while wondering who would look worse if the truth about that day ever came out: her for lying and pretending to be Kuwabara or Kuwabara for letting her lie and pretend to be him. At least she had not gotten herself into any sort of trouble with Hiei by revealing his secret, she told herself.

"Let's go shopping," she said, hoping to change the subject. "That always helps me relax! We could get a manicure!"

Yukina's face dropped.

"Or not," Botan quickly corrected herself.

Kuwabara was a heavy metal loving fighter, she inwardly reminded herself, and as such he had no interest in having his cuticles conditioned and his French Tips redone. In fact, she thought as she looked down at one of her hands, it looked as though Kuwabara preferred eating his fingernails to having them filed and painted.

"We could just get some new clothes," she concluded. "With the money… With the money I earned gutting fish…"

Botan swallowed hard as that memory returned to her: she hoped that Yusuke did something about getting her soul back into her own body before she had to cover Kuwabara's job. And, she thought as she and Yukina walked on, how would she cope if she had to attend college in Kuwabara's place? She was no academic, and she did not even know what subject Kuwabara was studying, much less how she would cope attending classes for him.

And, worst of all, if the problem was not fixed within that day, Hiei would have to go to spirit world and perform her job ferrying souls. Hiei lacked the people skills required for the job, but more than that, she doubted he would be diplomatic and pragmatic enough to deal with Koenma and some of the other characters that sometimes made Botan's job difficult in spirit world. Thinking about them almost made Botan smile as she realised that being Kuwabara was, for the time being at least, like a free vacation: she got to go to movies and to go shopping with Yukina and urinating was a lot easier with a male body.

Maybe this soul-swapping thing was not so bad after all.

**

* * *

**

In the next chapter of Ghost Fighter, Dennis decides to sue Inuyasha for identity theft. When he is successful, several more key characters in the business start their own legal battles, and Vincent and Charlene soon find themselves being sued by Vegeta and Bulma. Things get out of hand as, before long, everyone is suing someone for something, and eventually Jericho is forced to call in the only force powerful enough to stop the chaos: Sexual Harassment Panda.


	4. Something Chunky

**A/N:** **This fic goes places most fanfics don't and never should. Contains contentious opinions and uncensored humour abound. You have been warned.**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters in this fic, and nobody pays me to write this stuff. Unfortunately.

In the last chapter of Ghost Fighter, the gang got merrily drunk and played truth or dare – as they always do in every badfic worth its salt – and everyone's favourite pairings conveniently hooked up for maximum pop. However things went a little awry when the gang became bored of taking dares and instead began revealing truths, and Suzzie confessed that she enjoyed being spanked with a wooden spoon. Alfred disowned her as a sister, Jenny said that she would never be able to look Suzzie in the eye again and Eugene and Victoria both offered to help Suzzie fulfill her fantasy there and then.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 4: Something Chunky**

By the time they reached the gates to the giant, sprawling complex that was apparently Mukuro's headquarters, Kuwabara was positively swaggering. All nausea from his surroundings and apprehension about what lay ahead of him were gone from his mind: and really only because Yusuke was limping along at his side with a bloody nose, a black eye and possibly a few broken ribs. Kuwabara was not without injury himself, but as he had never managed to inflict any lasting damage upon Yusuke before, he considered his own wounds to have been a price worth paying for the privilege. Also he would probably not be in Hiei's body long enough to be bothered by the wounds he had suffered when they started to swell and any torn muscles started to ache anyway.

"I have to leave you here," Yusuke said to him, stopping halfway between the gates to the complex and the giant entranceway into the building itself.

"Right, and you're going to go and find a way to reverse what that box did to us, right?" Kuwabara asked him.

Yusuke shrugged and smirked slightly.

"Urameshi!" Kuwabara snapped.

"I'm all over it," Yusuke said, rolling his eyes and waving a hand dismissively at him. "Good luck in there, half-pint."

"Enjoy the short jokes while you can, Urameshi, because when I get back into my own body I'll…"

"You'll what?"

Kuwabara paused, realising then that, in fact, he was more of a threat to Yusuke in Hiei's body than he was in his own body.

"Just find a cure for what the box did to me, Urameshi!" he eventually said.

Yusuke grinned and nodded, but Kuwabara could tell that it was more of a "yes, I find your problem hilarious" nod than a "yes, I'll help you, friend" nod. As the only other option he had was to confess to Koenma that he had helped break the box and being unable to interact with Yukina knowing that she was the sister of the body he was in, he decided to just trust Yusuke and continue his lie of pretending to be Hiei until the problem was fixed.

He waved a hand to Yusuke and continued on to the giant opening into the heart of the fortress that was Mukuro's home. Kuwabara had never thought about Hiei having a girlfriend – frankly any thought about Hiei made Kuwabara a little nauseous, and thinking about him with a woman was very high on the list of vomit-inducing Hiei-related thoughts to have – but he supposed that if he had thought about it, he never would have thought that Hiei would be a kept man. And yet apparently he was: Mukuro was more powerful than him in physical strength, social status and financial wealth and apparently she was also his boss, landlord, mentor and benefactor. It was unexpected, and yet at the same time it made a surprising amount of sense: Hiei had always been a thief and something of a sponger. Even Kuwabara had not failed to notice that, when everyone got together at Genkai's temple for a reunion of any kind, shiny things went missing and when they went out anywhere, Hiei was the only one who never took his turn to pay for a round of drinks.

It was just another thing about Hiei that Kuwabara hated, but he supposed that he would eventually have to learn to be civil to the little bastard since he was Yukina's brother.

And how had that happened anyway? He knew that Yukina's brother was a fire demon and he had been expecting someone of a diminutive stature like Yukina herself was, but other than their height, they looked nothing alike.

Kuwabara shuddered at the thought and walked on, eventually tagging himself onto the end of a procession of large demons who were all moving through the hallways with a sense of purpose. They seemed to know where they were going, so hopefully they would lead him somewhere useful, he decided.

"Hiei," one of them barked at him suddenly.

He flinched involuntarily before nodding in what he hoped was the sort of greeting Hiei would usually give. Though honestly, he had never witnessed Hiei greet anyone – usually he just appeared suddenly and stared at people until they initiated a conversation with him that was on a topic he could be bothered talking about.

"Are you going for lunch too?" the demon asked. "I hear it's boiled intestines and lesser mud-worm gravy."

Kuwabara hoped that was a joke.

"I have to go see Mukuro," he said.

"Oh, I get it!" the demon replied, grinning and winking at him. "Don't let her wear you out too much this time, right?"

"Shut the hell up!" Kuwabara snapped. "You can't talk about Mukuro like that, she's your boss and she's a lady!"

"You're so uptight about–"

"Hey, it's not polite to talk about a lady like that! It doesn't matter how powerful or demony she is, she's still a lady!"

"A lady who likes to throw you around like a chew toy and then eat you."

Kuwabara started to argue back but stopped as two thoughts occurred to him: Mukuro was not actually his girlfriend, he knew nothing about her to know if the accusations the demon was levying were true or not so he had no obligation to defend her and Hiei was not really the type to defend a lady's honour so he was probably only drawing attention to himself by continuing the argument.

"Ain't you going in there?" another demon asked him, nodding at a corridor they were passing the opening of.

Kuwabara blinked up at him blankly.

"You said you were gonna go see Mukuro, right?" the demon pressed.

"Yeah, that's right," Kuwabara said, turning towards the corridor and moving away from the group to approach it. "I was just testing you… Making sure that you knew where it was…"

Kuwabara did not wait to find out if his lies were convincing or not, instead taking himself down the corridor he had been directed towards, eventually finding himself at a large door covered with pulsing veins, set into a wall that was ridged and fleshy like the roof of a mouth. He reluctantly rapped his knuckles against the door and waited patiently to be invited in. When he received no reply after a few minutes of waiting he knocked again, this time hitting harder.

"Hello?" he called out.

"Hiei?" a voice called back to him from the other side of the door.

"Uh, yeah, it's me, Hiei," Kuwabara replied.

He was never going to get used to be called that name.

"You're late," the voice called back.

"Sorry!" Kuwabara replied. "Can I come in?"

"Do you need my permission to?"

"Um… Yes?"

There was another prolonged silence before Kuwabara got his answer, during which he wondered if he had perhaps already said or done something incorrect.

"Get in here, Hiei."

At the sound of the order Kuwabara opened the door and entered the room beyond, walking briskly in but quickly losing momentum when he saw where he was, who was there and how the room was decorated.

"What happened to you? Don't tell me one of your human friends did that to you."

Kuwabara chose to focus his attention on the person addressing him – there were plenty of other things around him that he wanted to stare at, but he was wary of ignoring Mukuro in case she was as ruthless as Yusuke had warned him that she might be. She looked quite unthreatening, sat casually on a large white chair that looked like it doubled up as a throne and a bed. She was dressed in comfortable fighting clothing that was sufficiently loose to disguise her specific shape, making it difficult to determine if she had the physique of someone who could throw Hiei around "like a chew toy". She was also clearly scarred down one half of her body and missing an arm, sporting a skeletal automail replacement.

"Never mind," she said with a sigh when he did not answer her. "I really just wanted to pre-empt any plans you might have been making for tonight."

Kuwabara felt like he had just messed his underpants. Perhaps he had. Why had Hiei not mentioned anything about plans he had for that night? All he had said was that he was meant to meet with Mukuro. Was there something more specific going on?

"Were you making special plans for tonight, Hiei?" she asked.

"Uh…" Kuwabara began, his brain frustratingly going blank when he tried to think of a clever response. "No?"

"Oh, well, good," Mukuro said, nodding her head.

She leaned over and picked up what looked like a bottle of alcohol and a glass from a nearby table. She carefully measured out a half glass of the stuff then hesitated, glancing back and forth between the bottle and the glass. She then put down the glass and began drinking direct from the bottle.

"I'm glad," she said. "I don't like frivolous festivities. I appreciate that one time you did do something for me, but I'm glad you didn't make a habit of it. And besides, it's not like you could have topped that, right?"

Kuwabara followed the direction she was pointing and leapt back a step and yelped at what he saw.

"Best birthday gift ever," Mukuro added.

"B-b-birthday g-gift?" Kuwabara muttered. "B-but it's a naked m-man in a big plant that looks like it's very slowly and painfully eating him alive…"

It was, rather worryingly, a large, balding man, stripped of all clothing and encased in some sort of demon plant that had literally burrowed its stems into his veins and the back of his brain. He looked like he was still alive, but it was difficult to decide if he actually was alive or if the plant was just holding him up and making him seem alive. It was a repulsive sight, both because of the nature of the plant attached to the man and because of the man himself, and although it was something Kuwabara could never have dreamt up in his own mind, it made perfect sense to him that something so disgusting would be the sort of birthday present Hiei would give to his girlfriend.

"Wait…" he said, turning back to Mukuro. "Today's your birthday?"

Her face dropped and the air suddenly became colder and thicker. Kuwabara gulped nervously. Obviously he was meant to have known that, even if she was not the sort to celebrate such an occasion.

"W-well maybe we could just go have dinner someplace nice?" he tried.

"Do what?" she echoed.

"You know, we could go and get dinner at a nice restaurant, maybe go dancing, I'll buy you a rose from the waiter – unless it's an enchanted rose like that one Kurama carries in his hair…"

Mukuro placed down her bottle and sat forwards in her throne, resting her elbows on her knees.

"I'm a former ruler of this land, and at the last demon world tournament I proved that I'm the second strongest being in this world," she said in a low voice. "Why the hell would I want to "get dinner at a nice restaurant" and "maybe go dancing"?"

"Well, just because you're a really strong fighter and a ruler, doesn't mean that you're not still a lady, right?" Kuwabara replied. "You still like to be treated like a lady, don't you? I thought all ladies liked a little bit of romance sometimes."

Mukuro slowly straightened her back and her face changed into an expression that almost made her look lost and defenceless.

"Did I say the wrong thing again?" Kuwabara muttered, speaking more to himself than Mukuro.

He probably should have just grunted at her or told her what a fool he thought she was – that was probably more like how Hiei would have dealt with her.

"Nobody's ever called me a lady before, or suggested that I should be treated like one," Mukuro said quietly.

"Well, uh, do you want to be treated like a lady?" Kuwabara asked.

"I-I don't know…" she said. "I've never had the chance to… Damn Hiei, you never stop surprising me."

Kuwabara tensed: was that good or bad?

**

* * *

**

Yusuke stumbled and cursed as Hiei stepped out into the hallway and their paths almost crossed.

"Hn, reel you tongue back in, that way you won't just about fall on your ass the next time you try to walk," Hiei sneered at him.

"Shit Hiei, what are you wearing?" Yusuke asked, ignoring Hiei's insult.

"If I'm going to be forced to go on a date with my own comrade, I at least want something to amuse myself with while he tries to woo me with his pathetic human ways," Hiei replied.

"Something to…?" Yusuke asked faintly.

Hiei looked down at himself.

"This outfit gives me a nice view of her breasts," he said, lifting his head again.

"That outfit gives everyone a nice view of her breasts, Hiei," Yusuke replied. "If Botan finds out you made her go out in public in a dress that showed most of her boobs and barely covered her ass she will kill you!"

"Hn. I'd like to see her try," Hiei scoffed.

"What about Kurama? Don't you think he'll notice that you're dressed like a slut? Botan would never dress like that – where did you even get that thing?"

"I tried wearing the clothes Botan keeps in her wardrobe, but I hated them all. But while I was trying them on, I discovered that different clothes and different underwear can really help the shape of a girl's body. I found this dress in someone else's bedroom. It's a bit tight, but I found a pair of underpants that helped flatten my stomach so that I could fit into this dress."

"You… You're wearing… Hiei, are you listening to yourself? Underpants that flatten your stomach?"

"They're very practical and figure-flattering."

"Hiei!"

Hiei paused, the slow realisation of what he had said dawning on him.

"Never mind," he muttered.

"You're not actually liking being a woman are you Hiei?" Yusuke asked, grinning at him slyly.

"No," Hiei flatly replied. "And I'm not liking the fact that you still haven't fixed this yet! Get out of my way and get this sorted out! Now!"

Yusuke started to snigger into his hands and Hiei sighed in exasperation. He stomped past Yusuke and continued down the hallway until he sighted Kurama, who was waiting by the front door for him. For whatever reason, Kurama looked past him three times before finally recognising who he was, and then taking on a frightened look and backing up into a coat-stand, almost knocking it over in his urgency to put one more step of distance between himself and Hiei.

"Well I'm here," Hiei said as he stopped a few steps in front of Kurama.

"Yes, so I see," Kurama said, his gaze slowly running over Hiei.

His eyes did not linger until they reached Hiei's feet, where he stared for some time before eventually looking up at Hiei's face again.

"Any… Particular reason why you're wearing combat boots?" he asked.

"I think I look sexy in them," Hiei sarcastically replied.

Actually, he had found little choice of footwear in Botan's closet: he had been restricted to either sandals that flapped about too much when he walked or high-heeled silliness that somehow made his rear-end stick out an extra three inches whenever he tried to walk. Eventually he had resorted to wearing a pair of his own boots, which fit surprisingly well.

"And the dress…?" Kurama asked awkwardly.

"I'm sending you a signal," Hiei drawled, remembering how Keiko had said something about humans and signals on dates based on how each person dressed.

"Are-are you sure that's the signal you want to send me?" Kurama asked.

"Absolutely," Hiei replied, smiling sarcastically.

"Wow…"

Kurama tugged at the collar of his shirt and his throat visibly moved as he audibly gulped.

"I see you chose the green shirt," Hiei said before walking on towards the door.

"I didn't think black was a good idea," Kurama replied, following after him. "You always say Hiei looks like one of those irksome teenagers who frequent the coffee bar in the mall or like he's going to a funeral because of his black clothes, so I decided against repeating his mistake."

"I never said that about Hiei," Hiei snarled, whilst inwardly adding the remark to his list of reasons to kill Botan.

He stopped by the passenger door to Kurama's car and watched in a state of bemusement as Kurama opened the door and held it open for him. He eyed Kurama over in mild disgust – surely running around after a woman like that was a human tradition – and then he sat down into the car, still glaring at Kurama as he closed the door on him.

"Don't forget to put your seatbelt on," Kurama said as he got into the car.

"Hn, don't need it," Hiei stubbornly replied.

Kurama stared at him for a long time with an unreadable expression before finally starting the engine.

"Would you like to listen to some music?" he offered as he turned onto the long, narrow, winding road that led away from Genkai's temple.

"Sure," Hiei replied, switching on the radio.

He pushed a few buttons until he found something atonal and with offensive lyrics, at which point he turned the volume up to a level that bothered Botan's ears and so was bound to be painful for Kurama. He felt that if he was going to have to suffer this date, so was Kurama.

**

* * *

**

Botan was not sure if Yukina had fallen asleep or not, but either way, she had definitely been awake when she had cuddled into Botan's arm and leaned in to rest her head against Botan's chest, and that was surely a sign that Yukina had enjoyed herself without suspecting that she had not just been on a date with Kuwabara. Botan sighed contentedly. Dating Yukina was not so bad. She had spent all the money Kuwabara had been carrying, so she hoped she got back to her own body soon, otherwise she would surely end up working double-shifts at the fish-gutting factory, but she trusted that Yusuke would have found some sort of solution in the time he had had so far to solve their problem.

She wondered how the others were getting on: how Kuwabara was managing in demon world with Mukuro and how Hiei was coping with being made to date his own best friend. It was almost funny, and Botan thought that, once it was all over, she probably would laugh about it, but until then she was still concerned. She had waited years to go on a date with Kurama, and she had finally thought that her dream was going to come true, only for her to be cheated out of it by Hiei and Kuwabara selfishly breaking that stupid box. She also blamed Suzuka for making the box in the first place.

Yukina lifted her head slightly and looked about as though she was confused.

"Were you asleep, sweetie?" Botan asked her.

"Yes, I'm so sorry," Yukina replied, looking up at her. "I had such an exciting day. Thank you so much for taking me into the city, Kazuma."

"That's no problem," Botan said. "I enjoyed myself too."

"Good."

Yukina pursed her lips and looked away slightly as though she was thinking about something. After a few seconds she turned back to look at Botan again, and Botan felt a slight flutter of apprehension in her gut as she saw the look in the ice maiden's eyes.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked.

"…Okay…" Botan said.

Yukina beckoned for her to come closer and so Botan obligingly leaned down to move her ear closer to Yukina. Secret-telling was not something she had ever thought Yukina would have indulged in, and as she began to realise just how odd the situation was, she suddenly felt Yukina's lips on her cheek. The contact was quick and light and really no big deal as far as Botan was concerned, but she was quite amused and slightly amazed that Yukina knew how to play the "come closer" trick to surprise someone with a kiss.

"Very clever," she said, rolling her eyes and smiling.

Yukina – aware of how to tease but apparently unaware of the concept of sarcasm – smiled up at her in response.

"You've never told me that you wanted us to be more than friends before," she said.

"Well, we're already dating," Botan replied. "So I, uh… What?"

"I wasn't sure, I thought maybe you just wanted us to be friends, because although you acted like you wanted us to be more than friends, you never actually held my hand or told me that you wanted us to be together that way."

"…Are you serious?"

"So I thought I would just let you know that I want us to be more than friends too. I've never kissed a man before."

"Neither have I, that's why I'm so furious that I can't go on my date with K–"

Botan pursed her lips together, her eyes widening as she realised her mistake, which had almost been quite a catastrophic one. After taking Yukina clothes shopping, wanting a manicure, talking about how lovely Takashi Sorimachi was and then confessing to wanting to kiss Kurama, Yukina would certainly have concluded that Kuwabara was gay, and that might have ruined his chances of ever dating her.

"This doesn't make any sense, Yukina," Botan said firmly. "Kuwabara has been confessing his love to you since the day he rescued you from Tarukane. It's been years. Years! Are you honestly telling me that, in all that time, he's never made a serious move on you?"

"Um…" Yukina began, frowning slightly. "I, um, I mean, Yukina knows that you've been confessing your love for her, but Yukina thought that maybe you just wanted to be her friend because Keiko, Shizuru and Botan told Yukina that if you really cared for her, you would have made your intentions clearer instead of blushing and tripping over your own feet every time you spoke to Yukina."

Botan frowned. This was unbelievable.

"Can-can we stop that game now?" Yukina asked. "I don't like it. I don't like referring to myself in the third person, that's something only little children do."

Botan nodded, but she had not really heard the question to know what she was agreeing to.

"You've seriously never held hands before today?" she asked.

"Don't you remember that?" Yukina asked.

"I've seen Kuwa–I mean I've touched you before, I know I have."

"You've never held my hand when we were just walking together."

Maybe Kuwabara was gay, Botan decided. Maybe Yukina was just a front for him. Surely any man, no matter how charmless and gormless, would have at least held Yukina's hand after so many years of simpering up to her?

"I thought today should also be the day we have our first kiss," Yukina said, awakening Botan from her thoughts.

"You want me to kiss you?" she asked.

"I already kissed you," Yukina replied. "That was what I was talking about."

"That?" Botan asked, pointing at the point on her cheek where Yukina had kissed her. "That's your idea of a first kiss? Oh sweetie, you've got a lot to learn."

Botan paused, wondering how brave she felt that day. Kissing Yukina was something she could easily handle – since she had kissed plenty of other girls before, and saw no harm in doing so as long as she was single – but she had to consider whether or not it was something that Kuwabara would have done in the same situation. She did not need to think for long to conclude that Kuwabara would probably have just melted into his seat after Yukina had kissed his cheek, and he probably would have remained in liquid form until they arrived at the train station, at which point he would have solidified slightly into a gelatinous glob that would have allowed him to walk, all wobbly legged and gooey-voiced, back to the temple. Kuwabara was never going to advance his relationship with Yukina unless someone kick-started it for him, Botan decided, and so if she did kiss Yukina, she would be doing him a huge favour.

And it was not like it was weird to her, since she often practised kissing with the other ferry girls in spirit world, and the ones she considered close friends she had kissed more times than she could remember. Thinking about it a little more, she realised that Yukina and Keiko were her only female friends who she had not kissed. She had enjoyed a few interchanges with Shizuru after a few drinks and she had even kissed Genkai once.

She sighed. There was no way she was going to get to kiss Kurama in her current form, so she had to choose between kissing nobody or kissing Yukina.

"This is a first kiss," she said.

Before Yukina could argue or fully shirk away from her – which she did initially try to do – Botan grabbed Yukina's face and leaned over her, squashing their lips together. She was sure that, one day, Kuwabara would thank her for what she was doing for him right then.

**

* * *

**

"Give me something raw," Hiei said, slapping back Kurama's offer of a menu.

"We have an excellent selection of sushi, Ma'am," the waiter answered him.

"Not sushi, idiot," Hiei growled. "I want something raw."

"Sushi contains raw fish, Botan," Kurama whispered. "Don't you know that?"

"I don't want sushi!" Hiei snapped back. "I don't want flaked pieces of something that has been conveniently killed, sterilised and dissected to look nothing like the flesh of the creature it originally came from! I want something so raw that it bleeds when I bite into it. Give me something that bleeds."

The waiter slid back a step from Hiei.

"Maybe you could order the beef bowl," Kurama suggested. "We could ask the chef to just lightly cook the meat if you like it… Raw…"

Hiei looked about himself, his eyes eventually resting on a large, brightly light aquarium in the centre of the restaurant.

"Give me something out of that tank," he said to the waiter.

"Certainly Ma'am," the waiter replied. "We have crab, lobster or fugu, and we can boil or fry any of those for you."

"Why would I want it boiled or fried?" Hiei echoed. "I already told you: I want it raw!"

"Ma'am, the cooking process is what kills the fish," the waiter said quietly.

"I don't want it dead," Hiei whispered back. "I want it alive and twitching on my plate. Do you understand?"

"Could you perhaps give us a little longer to decide?" Kurama said to the waiter.

The waiter nodded and scurried off, apparently pleased to be free of Hiei's orders.

"Botan, I had no idea that you had a preference for live, raw food," Kurama said, carefully knitting his fingers together and resting his hands on the edge of the table as he spoke.

"That's how they serve food where I come from," Hiei flatly replied.

"Me too," Kurama replied.

"Then you understand my frustration," Hiei said.

"In this body, I do tend to find it easier to consume human food, cooked to human standards. I do still prefer to eat food the demon world way though."

"So let's go to demon world."

Hiei brightened a little. If he could convince Kurama to take him to demon world, he could go and check that idiot Kuwabara was not making him look stupid in front of Mukuro. He had not yet tried to use Botan's oar, but he had already decided that it must be ridiculously easy to use if an idiot like her could be so expert with it, and, as he could no longer run at a decent speed, he would need the oar to get him across demon world to where he needed to be.

"I have a better idea," Kurama said. "You know we don't have to go to demon world to eat like demons."

Hiei turned to Kurama and slowly eyed him over.

"Why would I want to eat like a demon?" he asked, waving a hand at himself.

Did Kurama know that he was not really that idiot woman? And if so, how had he found out? That idiot Kuwabara had probably said something stupid and blown their cover. Him or the ferry girl, both were equally as stupid, clumsy and useless at concealing anything.

"You said that you like raw, live food," Kurama replied. "And I know of a restaurant where you are guaranteed a refund if your meal is dead when it is served to you."

"In demon world?" Hiei asked.

"In this world," Kurama replied.

The fox demon then took on a smile that made Hiei feel strangely afraid, a chill passing down his spine.

"I had no idea you had such… Primal tastes, Botan," he said in a low voice.

Hiei started to think that maybe he had inherited some of Botan's bad habits along with her body, as it seemed as though he had said something he probably ought not to have.

"Let me take you there," Kurama added.

He stood up and held out his hand towards Hiei. Hiei took one last look around the restaurant before deciding that, since he was starving, he would just continue the charade.

"Fine," he said, standing up and putting his hand in Kurama's.

He was probably doing that ferry girl a favour, he told himself as they exited the restaurant. Kurama seemed pleased – ridiculously pleased, in fact – that she wanted to dine the demon world way, and now that he thought Botan had something in common with him he probably liked her better. She ought to be grateful to him, Hiei thought.

He just hoped Kuwabara was not messing things up with Mukuro.

**

* * *

**

"You're very tense."

Kuwabara bit back a sarcastic retort. Stating that he was tense was like saying that blood was red or that demon world smelled bad no matter which part you went to.

"I'm worried about Yukina," he replied.

He had not meant to say that, though it was the truth: he was worried about Yukina. More specifically, he was worried about Yukina going on a date with Botan. Even more specifically, he was worried about Yukina going on a date with Botan and Botan finding out about the fact that their relationship was, so far, more platonic than romantic. Actually, he was worried about Yukina going on a date with Botan, Botan finding out about the fact that their relationship was, so far, more platonic than romantic, and Botan then reporting that back Yusuke, who Kuwabara had told a few – non-explicit – lies to about how far he had gone with Yukina.

"Where is she this evening?" Mukuro asked.

Mukuro was currently rubbing his shoulders in what was, to be fair, quite a pleasant way, but between the feeling of her metal, skeletal fingers, the proximity of her hands to his throat and the idea that Yusuke might be right about her after all – Mukuro maybe was the one woman who could actually rape a man – the entire experience was anything but relaxing.

"She was on a date, she didn't get back before I left to come here," Kuwabara confessed.

Mukuro snorted and Kuwabara flinched fearfully, readying himself to pull away from her until he realised that she was laughing.

"Is she still humouring the attentions of that human you hate?" she asked. "What did you say his name was? Yanagi?"

"Kuwabara!" Kuwabara snapped, anger quickly replacing his anxiety.

"That's the one!" Mukuro said. "I knew it was some sort of plant. Kuwabara: like the bush."

"Yeah, like the bush. And yeah, Yukina actually really likes him."

"Isn't that part of the reason why you hate him so much?"

"I-I don't know, is it?"

"You can't hide anything from me, Hiei."

"I would never try to."

Kuwabara was terrified, and he would have said or done anything in that moment to avoid angering Mukuro. He hoped that she never found out the truth about his presence there that day.

"Look, I've told you before, Yukina probably won't ever be interested in him anyway," Mukuro said, her tone far too flippant for Kuwabara's liking. "She's an ice maiden. Ninety percent of the women in that village are gay, you know that. Most of them live and die without ever seeing a man. Just because your mother was one of the few that liked men, it doesn't mean that your sister will be too. You like women."

"But I'm a man!" Kuwabara protested. "And-and Yukina's not… She's not gay!"

"How do you know?" Mukuro asked.

"Because she's…"

Kuwabara started to feel sick, and this time not because of the smell of demon world or because he was so afraid of Mukuro. What Mukuro was saying was starting to make too much sense to be ignored.

"She's on a date with a man tonight," he said aloud, more to reassure himself than to address Mukuro.

"Did you check on her?" Mukuro asked.

"No, but I trust her," Kuwabara snorted.

"And you trust this "Kuwabara"?"

Kuwabara gulped.

"Check on her now, I'll wait," Mukuro said with a sigh.

Kuwabara grunted as she whipped off his bandana, and, as though on an instinct he could not control, he felt the third eye in his forehead opening. He closed his eyes, his first thought being that, although he knew that the jagan eye could be used to check on people far away, he had no idea how to use it: but the thought did not linger long as he shortly found himself looking into the carriage of a train, at himself and Yukina sat together, locked together at the lips.

"Oh my God!" he wailed. "Botan's kissing Yukina!"

He opened his eyes again and, mercifully, that broke the connection his third eye had to the scene playing out on the train.

"Who's Botan?" Mukuro asked.

"Botan!" Kuwabara cried. "The ferry girl Botan!"

"Botan's a girl?" Mukuro asked. "There, you see? Yukina is gay, I was right."

"No!"

Kuwabara stood abruptly and shook his head violently.

"No!" he said again. "She's sullying Yukina! And she's stealing her first kiss from her!"

"Hiei, the line between "over-protective brother" and "psychotic and intrusive brother" is very fat," Mukuro said bluntly. "I appreciate that you care about your sister, but you can't tell her what to do. Least of all when she doesn't even know that you're her brother."

Kuwabara, who had started pacing and pulling at his hair – which still felt like doggy fur – stopped and turned to glare at Mukuro.

"You know that Yukina is Hi–I mean my sister?" he asked.

"Of course I do!" she snapped back, looking slightly irritated.

"Does everybody know?" Kuwabara asked, no longer caring how fearsome Mukuro was. "Shizuru knew, Botan knew, Urameshi must have known, Kurama obviously knows – because Hiei tells him everything – you know, Koenma knows, Genkai must know… I bet even Puu knows! Why didn't anybody tell me?"

"…Hiei, what are you talking about?"

Kuwabara buried his face in his hands. This was getting ridiculous. And Hiei was mocking Yukina, openly walking around with both of their hiruiseki stones around his neck.

"Hey, wait a minute…" Kuwabara muttered.

He closed his eyes again and sought out the real Hiei, in Botan's body, finding that when he thought about him he appeared almost instantly. And when he found Hiei, Kuwabara started to laugh at what he saw. Apparently karma had a wicked sense of humour.

**

* * *

**

After a surprisingly authentic, live meal, Hiei agreed to go for a walk with Kurama – though he quickly got bored of it. Botan's body did not store energy the same way his own did, but he still felt like vigorous physical exercise would help calm him down.

"Spar with me, fox," he said.

Kurama stopped abruptly and turned to face him. Hiei stopped at his side, and, as he found himself almost on eye level with the fox he remembered his situation and realised that what he had said had probably sounded odd.

"I've grown weary of being such a worthless burden on the team," he said. "I want to become a fighter. So let's fight."

"Okay," Kurama replied.

"Don't give me that shit," Hiei replied. "It doesn't matter that I'm a woman or that I'm a spirit. I can still fight."

"Botan, I just said okay."

"You did?"

"Yes."

"Well okay then."

Hiei nodded at Kurama and then lowered himself into a fighting stance.

"I'll let you take the first shot," Kurama offered, doing absolutely nothing to prepare himself.

"That's incredibly stupid," Hiei warned him.

"I know what I'm doing," Kurama replied, smiling almost smugly.

Hiei snorted in dry amusement and began concentrating what little spirit energy Botan's body had into one fist: he was going to make Kurama regret underestimating him. If there was one thing that Hiei could not bear it was being underestimated – even if he was being underestimated whilst trapped in the body of someone else who was probably deserving of such underestimation.

He thrust his fist forwards, and, to his utter disbelief, Kurama still did nothing to defend himself and consequently ended up on the ground, his hair over his face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Hiei yelled down at him. "Why didn't you block? I'm so slow, you could easily have stopped that!"

"I didn't think that you would actually hit me, Botan," Kurama quietly replied.

"Well that shows how stupid you are," Hiei said. "And for being so stupid, you deserve what you got."

"Perhaps."

Hiei cried out – and hated himself for it, because the noise that came from his mouth was a very effeminate shriek – as his ankles were suddenly pulled out from under him. He landed awkwardly on his hands and knees, and he paused in that position as he was once more reminded that Botan's body injured far easier than his own did, and that simple fall hurt as much as having a sword stabbed through his hand did. Once the initial shock of pain had passed he made to move only to stop short again as he suddenly felt a weight pressing down on him. Looking back over his shoulder he was horrified to find Kurama draped over his back.

"I hope food isn't the only thing you like to do the demon world way," he growled.

"What?" Hiei squeaked.

"You should know that your choice of outfit and your choice of restaurant this evening is bringing out the demon in me," Kurama whispered.

Hiei tensed as Kurama moved slightly, resting hips against his backside.

"That had better just be your wallet in your pocket I can feel pressing against me, Kurama," Hiei warned.

"Oh it's not my wallet Botan," Kurama replied. "But it is something chunky."

**

* * *

**

In the next chapter of Ghost Fighter, George finally gets his lucky break when Death Row Records sign him to a 5-album deal after hearing his rendition of Eminem's "Just Lose It" during the Dark Tournament. George's life is turned upside-down by fame, and he wonders if Charlene is only suddenly attracted to him and if Jericho has only now started being nice to him because of his fame and fortune. Elsewhere Eugene and Alfred decide to pursue their own fame and fortune by starting their own reality television show called "Supersize My Marriage", but their plan is short-lived when they choose Vincent and Dennis as their first couple to pimp and promptly discover that Vincent and Dennis actually are a couple and they have legally adopted Audrey II, leaving Eugene confused and Alfred terrified.

**A/N:** Writing this fic is like pissing in my pants. Everyone who sees it is disgusted by me, but it does give me a nice warm feeling.


	5. Enjoy the Show

**A/N:** **This fic goes places most fanfics don't and never should. Contains contentious opinions and uncensored humour abound. You have been warned.**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters in this fic, and nobody pays me to write this stuff. Unfortunately.

In the last chapter of Ghost Fighter, Charlene joined Mensa and Vincent got his first shiny penny from the tooth fairy. Meanwhile, Alfred won second place in a beauty pageant and Dennis joined a bikers' gang. Elsewhere, Eugene got hit by a car in 1955, and was nursed back to health by his own mother, Victoria, leading to him finally disproving the grandfather paradox when he became his own grandfather.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 5: Enjoy the Show**

Botan sat back and smiled down at Yukina expectantly. For barely three seconds it seemed as though the little ice maiden was slowly sliding away from her, and then suddenly she was on the floor. Botan leaned over the seat to peer down at her, finding that, despite having landed in a very comprising position in the aisle between the seats, Yukina was making no effort to move.

"Sweetie, are you alright?" Botan called down to her.

Yukina muttered out something indecipherable but still made no effort to move. Botan held out a hand towards her, and although Yukina took hold of her hand, she did nothing to pull herself up, and Botan had to lift her entire weight from the floor. Once on her feet, Yukina stumbled slightly and then looked up and down the length of the carriage before carefully and quietly sitting down at Botan's side again.

"You look worried," Botan told her.

"Worried isn't the right word to describe how I feel," Yukina mechanically replied.

"You shouldn't be worried, sweetie," Botan assured her. "Nobody gets it right the first time. Your problem was that you were too hesitant and delicate. The key to making it feel really good is to use slow and firm strokes of the tongue."

Yukina looked over at a pair of teenage boys who were glaring over at her. She seemed to turn paler than usual as she watched them. Eventually she turned to Botan.

"Are you critiquing my kiss?" she asked.

"Yes," Botan answered. "You want to learn how to do it well, don't you?"

Yukina paled further.

"I'm only trying to help you, sweetie," Botan insisted. "A relationship can flourish or flounder based on how well you can kiss."

"Flo… What?" Yukina whispered.

"It just takes a bit of hard work and concentration, but you'll get there," Botan said. "And lucky for you, you've got me here to guide you in the right direction!"

"What?" Yukina echoed.

"Do you want to try again now, or do you want to wait until we get to our station? We're nearly there, I think…"

Botan leaned against the window and looked out at the track ahead of them to check if the station was visible yet or not.

"It's probably another five minutes yet, at least," she concluded, turning back to Yukina. "We could squeeze another quick kiss in between now and then, don't you think?"

For the first time ever, Botan saw the family resemblance between Yukina and Hiei.

"I don't understand what has happened to you," Yukina said, her voice quiet but firm. "But you've been acting strangely all day."

"But you like me better this way, don't you?" Botan replied cheerfully.

"Why are you acting so strangely today, Kazuma?" Yukina asked.

"I'm not acting strangely, Yukina," Botan replied.

It was not really a lie, since she was not acting strangely by her own standards, but perhaps she was coming across as a bit eccentric compared to Kuwabara's standards.

"It's as though you've gone crazy," Yukina whispered, saying the last word as though she feared speaking it might unleash some terrible force.

"I am crazy!" Botan replied. "Crazy in love!"

She threw her arms around Yukina and hugged her perhaps too tightly in the hope of diffusing the situation. If Yukina found out that she was not actually Kuwabara, there was a good chance she would tell someone else at some point, and Botan did not relish Koenma finding out that she had had a hand in breaking Suzuka's magic box.

"You're crushing me, Kazuma," Yukina mumbled into Botan's armpit.

"Oopsie, sorry!" Botan said, releasing her.

As she let her go, Botan accidentally messed up Yukina's hair slightly, leaving a section of it over her face. Botan carefully picked the strands of hair from her face and moved them back to where they ought to be, smiling as she completed her task. But, underneath the mess of turquoise hair, she found Hiei's face glaring up at her.

"Are you mad at me, Yukina?" Botan asked quietly.

"Mad isn't the right word to describe how I feel," Yukina replied.

"Oh dear…" Botan muttered.

**

* * *

**

Hiei had not moved for several seconds. He had not so much as blinked or drawn breath, but he did not even feel as though he needed to do either. He flinched slightly as he felt Kurama's hands in his hair, strategically sweeping it around over one shoulder to expose his neck.

"Come any closer to me and I will fucking murder you," Hiei warned him.

Kurama paused, and Hiei thought that perhaps he had given himself away. It was a trademark threat of his to issue, and Kurama was no idiot.

"I'm not sure that I understand," Kurama eventually said. "Are you saying that because you want me to talk dirty to you too, or are you trying to initiate some kind of role-play? I never thought of you as the sort of girl who likes to play the hunter and the hunted, and I should warn you that if you run away from me now and make me chase you, it will make me quite aroused."

Hiei's body jerked and he almost brought up his last meal.

"I don't want to know that about you," he said. "I never wanted to know that about you."

"I see," Kurama said.

To Hiei's relief, the weight lifted from his back. Not wasting his chance to escape Hiei quickly got to his feet and staggered a few steps away from Kurama before turning to face him directly. He could have sworn there was a glint of gold in Kurama's green eyes.

"I understand spontaneity is part of the thrill of the game," Kurama said as their eyes met. "But it's important that we establish some rules before indulging this fantasy of yours."

"Fantasy?" Hiei echoed.

"I don't want to push you too far," Kurama said, slowly stalking towards him. "You must understand that, when caught up in the excitement of the moment, I could lose control of myself and destroy you."

"I'd like to see you try, you cocky bastard!" Hiei snapped.

He grabbed at his hip and then swung his hand back around and pointed it at Kurama before remembering that his katana was still at his side, but unfortunately his side was now in the possession of that idiot Kuwabara. As he tried to cover his mistake, he could not help but notice that the look on Kurama's face was becoming increasing dark and malevolent.

"You know it's very naughty of you to toy with a demon like that, Botan."

Hiei flinched.

"Run if you think you can escape me," Kurama continued. "I'll even let you get a head-start. Just don't look back and don't slow down. I want this to be fun for both of us."

"Are you out of your mind?" Hiei snapped.

"I'll count to five, and then I'm coming after you," Kurama replied.

"This isn't a game, fox!" Hiei yelled. "I know you fox demons like to play games, but I don't!"

"One…"

"Games are puerile and immature!"

"Two…"

"And stop looking at me like I'm the dessert for the meal you just ate!"

"Three…"

"You're objectifying me, you sexist son of a bitch!"

"Four…"

"Wait… Why do I care if you objectify that woman, she's just–"

"Five!"

Hiei screamed – and this time he did not even care that it was an ear-piercing shriek that entered the whistle register in pitch – and he broke into a frantic sprint as Kurama started towards him. Kurama was barely moving and, despite running at the absolute limit of Botan's physical ability, the distance between them was closing by the second. Always resourceful, Hiei aimed himself for a bridge and began attempting to summon the ferry girl's oar to make his escape. As fast as Kurama was, he could not fly, and so once he was airborne, Hiei knew that he would be safe.

"Oar!" he ordered, staring at his hand expectantly. "Appear! Oar appear! Oar come! Oar arrive! Oar… Fucking appear!"

He did not know if swearing was the right way to make the oar appear or not, but he did not really care, instead he was simply relieved to see the stupid thing in his hand. Without looking back – mostly because Kurama had warned him not to – Hiei leapt off the bridge and swung the oar up between his legs, riding it as a witch would do a broom. He tried to focus his energy into it to control it, but that apparently was not how the thing worked, as he was plummeting towards the motorway below. He yelled out curses and tried to verbally order the oar to rise, finally managing to somehow make it swoop around in a staggered arc that lifted him up from the road and towards the sky.

"Ha!" he shouted back down to Kurama. "Let's see you catch me now!"

He laughed at the lost look on Kurama's face and steered himself towards the hills in the distance and began shooting off towards them. A few seconds later he noticed that he was veering off to one side and losing altitude. A few seconds more and he found himself turning without wanting to. Another few seconds later he was accelerating, but that only lasted briefly as he shortly collided with a road sign, splatting against it ungracefully, the oar vanishing beneath him. He slowly slid down the sign and then fell towards the ground, landing amongst a random plantation of lilies.

By the time he had untangled himself from the flowers – smearing brown lily pollen all over his face in the process – Kurama had found his way down to the roadside and was watching him in a mixture of confusion and disbelief.

"I don't remember you drinking alcohol this evening," he said.

"I didn't, unfortunately," Hiei grumbled.

Getting drunk sounded like a great idea to him right then. Maybe if got drunk enough he might forget the last two days, and by the time he had recovered from his stupor, he might even be back in his own body.

"So… You deliberately flew into the sign?" Kurama asked.

"Yes, I deliberately flew into the sign," Hiei sarcastically replied. "I thought you would catch me when I fell like the chivalrous gentleman that you are."

To his absolute horror, Kurama looked suddenly shocked and mildly embarrassed.

"I wasn't expecting you to crash," he said quietly. "I had no idea this was part of the game. I'm sorry Botan, are you alright?"

"No, I need to go home."

The collision had not even been hard enough to damage the sign, but Hiei was hurting in more places than he could count, and as the initial rush of adrenaline passed he was feeling those aches all the more: and, worst of all, they were making him want to cry. It was that woman. Obviously she had a very low tolerance for pain and crying was an instinctive thing for her body to do. Damn her.

"Of course," Kurama said, finally looking more like his usual, serene self, the wild, demonic look having at last faded from his eyes. "Would you like me to carry you back to the car?"

Hiei shook his head and started to walk, but after a few steps his vision blurred and his bottom lip started to tremble.

"I'll carry you," Kurama said.

Hiei collapsed into his arms and in what was arguably the most horrible moment of his life, he started to cry.

"Don't worry, I have soothing herbs back at Genkai's temple that will take the pain away," Kurama assured him.

"I don't care about the pain!" Hiei said. "I care about the crying! What the hell is wrong with me? I never cried when I was a man!"

Kurama went stiff but said nothing. Hiei did not really care what was bothering him anyway, he was too busy trying to stop the tears: but the harder he tried to contain them, the more aggressive his sobbing became, until he was literally clinging onto Kurama's shoulders to keep himself upright.

"I just want to get out of this body and go home!" he groaned.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Botan," Kurama said forlornly. "Though Koenma will no doubt be missing you, perhaps it is best that you return to spirit world tonight after all."

Hiei gripped his fists into Kurama's shirt and pushed himself back to look Kurama in the eye.

"Return to spirit world?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes," Kurama replied. "That's what you want, isn't it?"

The last time Hiei had been in spirit world he had been behind bars and in chains.

"Shit," he grumbled.

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara winced as Mukuro's metallic hand grabbed at his shirt. He stopped immediately in the hope that she would not tear the shirt from his body. She had a strange look on her face and Kuwabara was starting to worry that she might be expecting her birthday present from Hiei – and apparently her idea of a birthday present from Hiei was him letting her defile him in a quite violent manner – and really Kuwabara just wanted to go home. He wanted to go home because he had had enough of pretending to be Hiei and he wanted to go home because he wanted to actually go and see Hiei, in his ridiculously revealing outfit on all fours with Kurama groping at him, and he wanted to go and demand answers from Botan as to why she had felt the need to kiss Yukina.

Kuwabara himself had never even kissed Yukina, it was so unfair. Though, he thought, technically speaking, he now had kissed her, because it was his lips that had been kissing Yukina on that train. But they had been controlled by Botan, and she had not only stolen his first kiss with Yukina, she had also advanced his relationship with Yukina without his permission. He was furious with Botan for both of those things, though he supposed that Hiei was messing up Botan's relationship with Kurama, so she was getting what she deserved.

Kuwabara, meanwhile, now feared for his life, as Hiei's girlfriend had him in a death grip.

"You're not leaving already are you Hiei?" she asked.

"Uh, well, you know, it's been such a long day…" Kuwabara began.

"I haven't seen you for weeks, Hiei!" Mukuro said, her tone changing. "You disappear all the time, and you only ever come back here when you need something, but what about my needs?"

"Well, you know what a selfish little bastard I am!"

"I don't care how selfish you are, I just wish that you would show me the same level of loyalty and devotion as you do to your friends in the living world!"

"What?"

Kuwabara looked back over his shoulder at her. Had she lost her mind? Hiei had no loyalty or devotion to anyone in the living world! The fact that he had been present when Suzuka had arrived with his magic, soul-stealing box was probably because there had been a valuable weapon present, since Hiei never usually attended any of their parties or simple get-togethers.

"I didn't mind that you chose Yusuke Urameshi and Kurama over me in the past, but after all we've been through together, I had hoped that you would at least view me on the same level as them."

"…Hiei chooses Urameshi and Kurama over his own girlfriend?"

"I know you don't trust or form alliances easily, but neither do I, and I bared my soul and my body to you long ago!"

"…I didn't need to know that…"

"I think you need reminding of it."

"No, no I don't. I can remember really well, so you don't have to remind me."

"I think I do."

"Please don't."

"Are you being sarcastic now?"

"No."

Mukuro sighed and, much to Kuwabara's relief, she released her grip on his shirt.

"I know one way to make you talk," she said.

"I don't have a problem talking," Kuwabara quickly replied. "I can talk as much as you want me to."

"Let's fight."

"What?"

Kuwabara staggered around to face her as she stood from her throne and approached him. She did not look especially intimidating – after all, she had the physical appearance of a pretty woman who had bore terrible scars down one side of her body, and that was hardly scary when weighed up against some of monsters Kuwabara had seen during the course of the Dark Tournament – but she did not need to look intimidating to be intimidating.

"Could you come down from there?" he asked quietly. "I feel weird with you standing up there looking down on me like that."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked.

Kuwabara started to tell her that he wanted her to step down off of the raised platform she was obviously standing on, but as he pointed at her feet and looked down at them himself he saw that she was in fact standing toe-to-toe with him on the same surface. He slowly raised his head again. His eyes were level with her mouth. If he looked up, the first thing he saw was her nose. He could see right up her nostrils.

"I want to go home," he said meekly.

**

* * *

**

Botan smiled as Yukina glanced at her. It was the first time the ice maiden had looked her way since they had disembarked the train.

"You know sweetie, practise does make perfect," Botan said gently.

"I don't care about that," Yukina replied. "I just want to know why you're acting so differently today."

"Well…"

Botan tried to think of a suitable lie, but failed miserably and so resorted to the next best thing.

"I don't feel like myself today," she said. "I can't say why, but I am sorry if I upset you in any way. I love you Yukina, and I would never intentionally hurt you."

Yukina stopped walking and Botan correspondingly stopped at her side. They turned face each other, and although the look on Yukina's face was one of distrust and scrutiny, it was still a more comforting sight to Botan than the looks Yukina had been giving her after their kiss.

"I don't know that I like you being as bold as you have been today," Yukina eventually said. "But I also didn't really like that you would never just tell me your intentions. Sometimes your hesitancy almost annoyed me. I love you, Kazuma."

"You do? Well that's super!"

Botan clapped her hands until she noticed the way Yukina was looking at her. She then slowed to a halt, cleared her throat and tried to look serious.

"I mean great," she corrected herself. "It's great."

"I'm just confused about the way you're acting and… You look different… You even feel different…"

Botan briefly worried that Yukina might sense that she was only talking to Kuwabara's body and not his soul, and she realised that she had two options then: either she confessed the truth to Yukina, blowing both her own cover and Kuwabara's or she could redouble her efforts and really, really try to be Kuwabara.

"Do you want to listen to me sing karaoke?" she asked.

Yukina smiled and inwardly Botan congratulated herself.

"Will you sing the Yukina song?"

Botan's face dropped.

"There's a Yukina song?"

Yukina started to walk on, leaving Botan confused and lost, but, as she spotted Yusuke approaching her, she quickly forgot all about the conversation she had just had with Yukina.

"Oh, thank goodness!" she gushed as he joined her. "Your timing is just perfect."

"It always is," Yusuke casually replied. "She's talking about "Maria". Kuwabara sings it to her and he just substitutes Yukina in where he's supposed to sing Maria. Everything else is the same."

"What are you talking about?" Botan asked.

""Maria"," Yusuke replied. "You must have heard Kuwabara singing it to Yukina before. You know, "Maria, I just met a girl named Maria" – except you say Yukina instead of Maria."

Botan sighed patiently.

"No, Yusuke," she said. "Not the song. I don't care what Kuwabara sings to Yukina when he's trying to express his love in the most repressed way imaginable, I care about the answer you found today for how I get my own body back!"

"Oh, your body, right!" Yusuke said. "Hiei's still out on your date with Kurama, and Kuwabara's still on Hiei's date with Mukuro."

"I didn't ask you that either, Yusuke," Botan said. "Did you or did you not find out how we reverse the effects of that magic box?"

"I'm working on it."

"Well just like with everything else you do, you're not working hard enough!"

"Couldn't have said it better myself, Botan."

Botan screamed and leapt back a step, inadvertently standing on Yusuke's toes when she landed. He grunted and pushed her away but she made no effort to apologise – he deserved it for not trying to help her and she was too distracted by the fact that Genkai had just addressed her by her own name.

"Yusuke told you what happened?" she asked.

"He didn't need to," Genkai replied. "Hiei styling his hair like a punk, you sulking and swearing and Kuwabara styling his hair like a pretty boy was something of a giveaway."

"Ooh, but don't you think he looks so much better like this?" Botan responded, running her fingers through her hair.

"Yusuke maybe hasn't bothered his ass to find a solution to your problem, but I've been trying," Genkai said, ignoring Botan's question.

"You can fix me?" Botan brightened.

"No," Genkai bluntly replied. "From what I can tell, there is no alternate, quick fix."

"You mean I'm stuck like this forever?"

"Aw gees!" Yusuke groaned. "Don't cry! I can't stand seeing Kuwabara cry! It was funny the first time, but it's getting creepier every time I see it!"

"You're probably going to have to wait it out," Genkai said. "Unless Yusuke can find you an answer in demon world. I checked the ancient texts in this world and I even managed to convince Koenma to check for a solution without revealing your mistake to him. Unless there is a solution in demon world, you're only solution is to wait it out."

"Wait it out?" Botan sobbed.

"Until Kuwabara dies," Yusuke explained. "He's human, he'll die in about fifty or sixty years' time, and then your soul will go spirit world."

"I can't be a man all that time!" Botan wailed. "I just can't! I'll go crazy! And I won't ever get my own body back because Hiei's got it, and he'll live forever!"

"Yeah, and Kuwabara will live in Hiei's body forever, so Hiei will always be a ferry girl!" Yusuke snorted in amusement.

"Yusuke stop being such a smart-ass and tell the poor girl the truth!" Genkai snapped.

"The truth?" Botan asked, her tears drying as she glanced back and forth between Genkai and Yusuke expectantly.

"The truth is simple," Yusuke said, looking suddenly very serious.

Botan edged closer to him expectantly.

"Kuwabara makes for one ugly man, but he makes for an even uglier woman."

Botan started to cry again and Genkai kicked Yusuke in the shin.

"Stop tormenting her, this is no laughing matter!" she scolded him.

"Calm down, grandma!" Yusuke snapped back at her. "It's not my fault those three idiots broke the box! They got what they deserved! They knew it had that power before they broke it!"

"I didn't deserve this!" Botan argued. "I did not deserve a body with hair in places it never ought to grow and Hiei dating my boyfriend!"

Yusuke sniggered.

"Tell her the truth about the effects of the box, Yusuke," Genkai warned him.

"What are you talking about?" Yusuke asked her. "It steals souls! Botan already knows that!"

Genkai tilted her head slightly, studying Yusuke curiously for some time before slowly letting out a sigh and shaking her head.

"Did you listen when Suzuka explained what the box did?" she asked.

"I drifted in and out," Yusuke replied.

"Idiot!" Genkai and Botan yelled in unison.

"Hey!" Yusuke protested.

"The effects of the box were never intended to be permanent," Genkai said, turning her attention fully to Botan. "He intended the box to steal the powers of an opponent he was facing, and the effects were only meant to last as long as the battle."

"Oh, so I'm not permanently stuck in Kuwabara's body?" Botan asked.

"No," Genkai replied.

"Super!"

Botan punched herself in the face, staggering back a few steps before complaining about how much it hurt.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Yusuke asked her.

"Genkai said the effects only last for the duration of the fight, right?" Botan replied. "So if I knock myself out, the effects should wear off, right?"

"Wrong!" Genkai barked, catching Botan's sleeve before she was able to punch herself again. "If that were the case, you would have returned to your own bodies when you all fell asleep last night."

"Oh, good point…" Botan muttered.

"The effects wear off with time," Genkai explained. "If Yusuke can't find a solution to speed up the process, you'll just have to wait for that time to come."

"How long does it take to wear off naturally?" Botan asked. "Another whole day?"

"No."

"Another two days?"

"No."

"A week? Goodness, I can't possibly stay like this for a whole week! I'll have to go to college, and work in the fish-gutting factory, while Hiei ferries souls and dates Kurama!"

"Not a week."

Botan paled and Yusuke started to laugh.

"Two weeks?" she asked.

"No," Genkai replied.

"Longer than two weeks?" Botan asked.

"Oh please say it's longer than two weeks!" Yusuke said.

"Idiot," Genkai growled at him, before turning to address Botan again. "But unfortunately for you it is longer than two weeks. Consider this your punishment for being so careless with such a powerful item."

"How long is it?" Botan asked.

"Six weeks."

Botan fainted. Yusuke laughed harder. Genkai called them both idiots.

**

* * *

**

"Are you feeling better?" Kurama asked.

Hiei's physical aches and pains had gone after Kurama's application of his healing herbs, but his mental aches and pains were worsening by the second. Kurama had, for reasons Hiei dared not think about too closely, taken them back to his own apartment instead of back to Genkai's temple as he had said he would do.

"I feel great," Hiei lied sarcastically.

"It's been a very educational night," Kurama replied. "I'm just sorry I didn't catch you when you fell. I didn't understand the rules of your game, but I certainly would have liked to have seen where it led to."

"I wasn't playing a game," Hiei growled.

"Yes, you're right, game is the wrong word for it," Kurama agreed. "You treated it more like a very serious sport. I've never met a woman – during my life in demon world or my time here in the living world – who takes foreplay quite so seriously as you do, Botan."

"I take everything seriously," Hiei replied

"So do I."

Hiei froze, his eyes wide and staring at Kurama's hand, which was suddenly covering one of his.

"I know our first date didn't exactly go as planned, but it's not too late to save tonight."

Hiei kept his eyes on Kurama's hand. He did not want to look up and find as much lustiness in Kurama's eyes as there was in his voice.

"Let me make it up to you."

Hiei yelped and dodged to one side, watching Kurama fall, face-first, onto the bed where he had been sat a moment before. Hiei made to stand up but Kurama still somehow had a hold of his hand and he tugged him back down. At the mercy of Kurama's infinitely superior strength, Hiei fell on top of him awkwardly, but did not remain there for long as Kurama rolled over him, pressing him down against the bed.

"Fuck off!" Hiei yelled, putting his hands to block Kurama as he tried to move in for a kiss.

"My, Botan," Kurama purred, giving Hiei the sort of look Mukuro gave him when she was especially horny. "Away from your peers, you're quite the dirty little girl."

Hiei did not bother to correct Kurama, instead focusing his attention on keeping their lips apart as he tried to close the gap between them again.

"You don't need to play that game any more," Kurama said, his fingers working into Hiei's hair. "I know you want me to make love to you tonight."

Hiei froze – mostly because Kurama's hands were so entangled in his hair he could no longer move his head and the feeling of again being prodded by a part of Kurama's anatomy he never wanted to become acquainted with was almost terrifying.

"I don't want that," he said. "I never, ever want that."

"I can tell be the way you're dressed and the way you've been behaving all night," Kurama replied. "And besides, I'm not blind nor am I a simpleton. I know that you watch me, Botan. I've seen you–"

"I don't want to have sex with you, fox!" Hiei cut him off. "I don't even need you for that, I get plenty of satisfaction from just touching myself!"

The haze of lust evaporated from Kurama's eyes in an instant.

"You prefer touching yourself to taking a lover?" he asked.

"Yes!" Hiei snapped.

Kurama gently untangled his fingers from Hiei's hair.

"I see," he said.

He carefully lifted himself off of Hiei and sat down on the edge of the bed, his head hanging low. Hiei watched his back for some time, realising then that he had apparently completely misjudged Kurama's feelings for the ferry girl. Apparently Kurama really was quite fond of her, and he was obviously upset – understandably, Hiei conceded, since any man would be if a woman told him she would rather pleasure herself than let him do it.

"I'll let you watch."

Kurama's head snapped up.

"I'll do it right now," Hiei continued. "And you can watch me. Just don't touch me. Or yourself. And keep your clothes on."

Kurama looked back over his shoulder at Hiei, his expression unreadable.

"I don't mind you watching me pleasure myself, just don't try to get involved," Hiei said.

Kurama twisted around to face him.

"Botan…" he said. "You're just full of surprises… I think I could fall in love with you."

"And don't talk about love either, it turns me off," Hiei warned as he kicked off his boots. "Just sit there quietly and enjoy the show."

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara staggered into the living room breathlessly, looking around the occupants of the room before settling on one.

"You…" he said, pointing an accusing finger at Botan.

"Good evening, Hiei," she replied. "Back already?"

Kuwabara growled, inwardly enjoying the vicious sound it made.

"I see everything," he said, yanking off his bandana and pointing at the jagan eye in his forehead. "Everything…"

Botan gulped and looked about herself.

"Would you excuse me, sweetie?" she said to Yukina, who was sat at her side.

"Don't go!" Yukina pleaded, catching one of Botan's hands in both of hers. "And Mister Hiei, please don't be angry!"

Kuwabara turned to Yukina, unsure what to think let alone what to say to her.

"Kazuma is a wonderful man and I'm in love with him, Mister Hiei," she said.

"Oh…"

Kuwabara relaxed slightly. At least Botan had not ruined things between him and Yukina as he had feared she might do after his vision of her kissing Yukina far too passionately earlier that day.

"Kazuma has shown me a side of himself today that I never knew existed," Yukina continued. "And now I know for sure that I will love him for the rest of my life."

Kuwabara moved his eyes to Botan again.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Hiei," Botan replied, winking as she said "Hiei".

"I know how much of a beating my body can take before it dies," Kuwabara warned her.

"Are you threatening me?" she snapped.

"Maybe I am!" he yelled.

"Fine!"

Kuwabara was so shocked to see Botan instantly and easily summon his spirit sword he was too late to respond as she lunged at him. As they hit the floor and he fought to keep the sword from his throat, Kuwabara clearly heard Yusuke laughing and Genkai groaning.

**

* * *

**

In the next chapter of Ghost Fighter, Jenny accidentally and conveniently shatters the sacred jewel into over nine thousand pieces, and Jericho tells her that she must retrieve all the pieces before Toguro finds them, and orders Eugene to help her. Along the way, Jenny and Eugene make many friends including Dennis the cheeky little fox demon, Alfred the spiritually aware but perverse monk and Charlene the troubled but wicked hard demon slayer and her pet fire demon Vincent, who she likes to ride. A lot. They face many obstacles and much emotional drama – like the fact that Jenny is in fact the reincarnation of Jeremiah (you can tell because their names both begin with the same letter), and Toguro is still hung up over Jeremiah and is basically just being a jerk because she jilted him. They fight many scary enemies on the way, including the Band of Seven/Sensui… So basically the next chapter is about 90 percent filler and 10 percent plot.

**A/N:** Actually, after rereading the last Ghost Fighter sub-plot just now, I really like that idea. I think I need to write another crackfic about that idea (using the original character names of course). I especially like the thought of Hiei as Kirara, Kurama as Shippo and Sensui as the Band of Seven.

**PS** I don't know what Toguro's dub name was. Did he have a dub name? I'm thinking he was probably called something dramatic like Vaughn or Lex or Xavier. Or Debbie.


	6. Three Fingers Up There

**A/N:** **This fic goes places most fanfics don't and never should. Contains contentious opinions and uncensored humour abound. You have been warned.**

**Ah, when in Londontown with nothing better to do, write crackfic, including more classic Mindless, Esoteric, Self-Referential Inserts ™ **

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters in this fic, and nobody pays me to write this stuff. Unfortunately.

In the last chapter of Ghost Fighter, Eugene quit the series in a shocking twist when he discovered that all the girls – Charlene, Suzzie and even Jenny – were only really there because they wanted a piece of Dennis. After an impassioned speech about inequality and an unfair share of fangirls, Eugene resigned and encouraged Alfred, Vincent and even Jericho to leave with him. Alfred wanted to leave too because of Dennis's popularity, but when he found out that, with Eugene gone, he was the new protagonist of the story, he decided to stay. Jericho revealed that he has almost as much success with the ladies as Dennis and he wanted to stay and Vincent said he didn't care what the fangirls thought about him and he didn't care if he was in the series or not. After receiving a 25 percent payrise, Vincent agreed to stay with the series.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 6: Three Fingers Up There **

Botan and Kuwabara sat at opposite sides of a table glaring at each other. Genkai and Yusuke were sat on either side of them, at each end of the table. Genkai had her arms crossed and a stern look on her face and Yusuke was trying to chew a smirk off of his face.

"I saw what you did," Kuwabara growled. "I saw you kissing Yukina on the train."

"So?" Botan scoffed. "It was a date! People do kiss on dates, you know. Well, normal people kiss on dates. Apparently you don't. I've done you a huge favour."

"You kissed my one true love," Kuwabara replied.

"Well it was past time that somebody did!" Botan shot back. "It's ridiculous that, after all this time, you've never kissed her!"

Yusuke snorted and moved a hand over his mouth, though it was still obvious by the shape of his eyes that he was grinning.

"You kissing Yukina wasn't part of the deal!" Kuwabara snapped, thumping a fist against the table, which cracked under the force of the blow.

"You're paying for that," Genkai told him.

"Sorry, I keep forgetting my own strength," Kuwabara answered her.

"We didn't make any sort of deal," Botan pointed out. "All that we agreed on was that we would pretend to be each other until Yusuke found a way for us to get back to our own bodies."

"Exactly," Kuwabara said. "You're meant to be pretending to be me. If you knew I'd never kissed Yukina, why did you think it was okay to suddenly shove your tongue down her throat?"

"It's not my tongue, it's yours," Botan snottily replied.

"That's not how it works!" Kuwabara protested.

"I don't know what you're getting so upset about," Botan said, shrugging indifferently.

"You don't know what I'm getting so upset about? You kissed my girlfriend! And it wasn't just a little kiss, you were all over her!"

"So? Didn't you just go to demon world to go on a date with Hiei's girlfriend?"

"I didn't go on a date, I had a meeting, and I kept my hands to myself!"

"Well I suppose that's not really surprising, considering how you've been with Yukina these past few years…"

"You don't just go around putting your hands on someone else's girlfriend, Botan!"

"I really don't see why you're so upset."

"How would you like it if Hiei kissed Kurama?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Kuwabara. Hiei wouldn't do that. They're friends, and they're both men."

"You kissed Yukina and she's your friend and you're both women!"

"Yes, but it's different between girls. It's more innocent and playful. With men it's always sexual."

"…What?!"

Genkai sighed and Yusuke finally sobered up a little.

"Really?" he asked, turning to Botan. "Girls actually do stuff like that in the real world?"

"No, only girls like Botan do stuff like that!" Kuwabara cut in before Botan could reply.

"It doesn't matter," Botan said. "I don't know why Kuwabara is getting so upset when I've obviously done him a favour. I've advanced his relationship with Yukina. He ought to be grateful."

"Yeah, and I think Hiei is probably doing the same thing for you right now, Botan," Yusuke replied.

Botan's face dropped.

"What?" she asked.

"He went out dressed like a slut and Kurama couldn't take his eyes off of him," Yusuke said.

"…Whuh…?"

"Ha!" Kuwabara said, pointing a finger across the table at Botan. "You don't like it when someone else does it to you, huh?"

"This is hardly the same thing, Kuwabara!" Botan protested. "I didn't dress like a whore on your date!"

"No, but you did do something girly with my hair and then acted all out of character around Yukina!"

"You can talk, look at the mess you made of Hiei's hair! Newsflash Kuwabara: that hairstyle went out of style years ago!"

"There's nothing wrong with this hairstyle, it's manly! What you've done to my hair is just plain wrong!"

Botan rolled her eyes and then turned to Yusuke.

"Did Hiei seriously dress inappropriately for my date?" she asked him.

"I've seen whores in demon world wearing more," Yusuke replied.

"Why did you let him out like that?" Botan snapped.

"I'm not his keeper, I can't order him around," Yusuke said with a shrug.

"I don't even understand how he could have gone out like that, I don't own any revealing outfits!" Botan wailed.

"He said he found the dress somewhere else in the temple," Yusuke explained.

"Where? Where in this entire temple is there an outfit like that?"

"He stole it from me."

Botan whipped around to face Genkai.

"That's not funny grandma, that's just sick," Yusuke said.

"I'm not joking," Genkai said sternly. "It was a plain summer dress I used to wear in my younger days."

"That doesn't sound so bad…" Botan said quietly.

"It's not a revealing outfit," Genkai replied. "At least, not on someone my size. Stretching it over a body the size of yours, Botan, makes it something else entirely."

Botan pressed a hand over her mouth.

"There was more of you out of the dress than there was in the dress," Yusuke said, smirking darkly at the back of Botan's head.

"This isn't funny, Yusuke!" she wailed, rounding on him.

"Who's laughing?" he asked.

"You are, Urameshi," Kuwabara muttered.

"Well, you know, it is funny," Yusuke said, trying to fight a smile. "Think about it from my point of view: it's really, really funny."

"Would you still think it was funny if this had happened to you?" Botan asked.

"Yeah!" Kuwabara added. "Imagine if it was you that was stuck in Botan's body and dating Kurama!"

Botan glared at him.

"And imagine you had Kuwabara living in your body, dating Keiko!" she said.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Kuwabara said.

"There's plenty wrong with that!" Yusuke argued.

"Now you understand, and you see that it isn't funny," Botan said sternly.

"But I'm not affected by this, because I wasn't dumb enough to break the stupid box, so actually it is funny," Yusuke corrected her. "It's extremely funny."

"Genkai, can't you tell him to stop?" Botan pleaded.

"I could," Genkai replied. "But the dimwit makes a good point: it is quite entertaining to watch the three of you."

"What?" Kuwabara and Botan echoed.

"Especially now!" Yusuke said, pointing at something behind Botan.

She turned in her seat, her jaw dropping and a faint yelp escaping her throat as Kurama entered the room accompanied by Hiei, who was clearly demonstrating that Yusuke had not been exaggerating about the sluttiness of his outfit.

"Well hello Kurama, Botan," Botan said tightly. "Did you have a nice date this evening? That's certainly a very interesting outfit that you're wearing, Botan."

"Shut-up Kuwabara, nobody cares what you think about anything," Hiei spat back.

"Oh yeah?" Kuwabara said. "Well nobody cares even less about what you think about anything, Botan!"

"That's not true!" Botan snapped, turning to Kuwabara.

"Idiots," Hiei muttered.

He moved further into the room, followed by Kurama, who was glancing back and forth between Kuwabara and Botan, looking increasingly confused as he did so.

"You're the idiot!" Kuwabara said as Hiei passed him "And – ew, why do you smell like pu–"

Kuwabara stopped short and turned very pale very quickly.

"Smell like what?" Botan asked, sitting bolt upright. "What? What does she smell like? What has she been doing?"

She fixed her eyes onto Hiei, who contorted her face into a maniacal grin that she had never thought it could ever express. Botan gasped, her hands covering her mouth.

"You didn't…!" she whimpered.

"It's not cool when someone else interferes in your lovelife, is it, Kuwabara?" Kuwabara sneered across the table at her.

"Hiei, are you feeling alright?" Kurama asked him. "You don't seem yourself. You seem exceptionally… Animated…"

"Yes Hiei," Hiei said, turning to Kuwabara. "Why don't you shut up, you're making a fool of yourself."

"I think there's something wrong with Botan," Botan said, glaring at Hiei. "She wouldn't normally dress like that or be so rude to Hiei. In fact, she's always been very kind and tolerant of Hiei, even though he is a complete and utter ass!"

"Well there's nothing wrong with Kuwabara…" Yusuke muttered.

Botan shot him a deathly glare but he pretended not to notice.

"Hey, speaking of Kuwabara, it's getting late, and doesn't he have to leave soon so that he can be up in time to go to college tomorrow morning?" Kuwabara said.

"Why would you know that, Hiei?" Yusuke asked.

"I'm psychic," Kuwabara flatly replied, pointing at the bandana around his forehead.

Yusuke nodded and held up a hand in admittance of defeat.

"Yes and I think Botan should be leaving too," Botan said, glaring at Hiei. "She's due back in spirit world, and she usually flies me back to my apartment before she goes."

"Fine, but isn't Hiei supposed to be back in demon world?" Hiei said, glaring at Kuwabara.

"I'm a free spirit, I do what I want," Kuwabara replied.

"If Hiei doesn't go back to demon world, I'm not going back to spirit world," Hiei said, glaring across the table at Botan.

"That hardly seems fair," she said sharply. "But I see your point: if you don't go back to spirit world, I won't go to college tomorrow."

Botan turned to Kuwabara.

"Whose side are you on, Kuwabara?" he asked.

"My own, Hiei," she replied.

"Fine," Kuwabara grumbled, standing up from the table.

"Good," Botan agreed, standing up.

"Do you really have to leave right now?" Kurama asked Hiei.

"Yes, I'll miss you too, sweetheart," he sarcastically replied.

Botan began grinding her teeth and, when Kurama leaned in to kiss Hiei, she clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles cracked. Hiei leaned away from Kurama, who seemed undeterred, and so Hiei pointed to his cheek, tensing but allowing the fox demon to kiss the side of his face. Botan whimpered out a small noise of annoyance, but, as Yukina entered the room, she began to grin wickedly.

"I have to leave now Yukina my love," she said, deliberately talking too loudly. "How about a goodbye kiss?"

"Well actually, I came here to–"

Botan cut Yukina off by grabbing her into a sweeping embrace and forcing a kiss on her. She did not prolong the moment for Yukina's sake, but she made sure that it was a showy gesture. As she released Yukina again the little ice maiden staggered away from her awkwardly, looking dazed and confused; but Botan did not notice, as she was too busy enjoying the glares she was getting from both Kuwabara and Hiei.

"It's not cool to kiss my sister in front of everyone like that, Kuwabara," Kuwabara said.

Hiei turned to him abruptly and even Kurama looked shocked.

"Let's just get out of here," Hiei snarled, stomping across the kitchen.

Kuwabara followed after him, glowering at Botan as he passed her.

"Good luck on your little mission, Yusuke," Botan reminded Yusuke as she turned to leave.

As she left the room she heard Kurama ask Yusuke what sort of mission he was on, and Yusuke's response left Botan once more grinding her teeth in suppressed anger.

"A mission to enjoy the funniest joke ever."

**

* * *

**

Keiko hummed cheerfully to herself as she crossed the temple gardens. She had just finished filling the wild bird feeders in the trees and was on her way back to say goodnight to the others and journey back home herself: but she stopped partway to her destination as Hiei, Kuwabara and Botan suddenly thundered out of the temple together. It was odd to see the three of them together, but it was especially odd to see Hiei with his hair styled like Kuwabara's, Kuwabara swaying his hips as he walked and Botan dressed like a slut.

"You idiots!" Botan hissed as all three stopped by the edge of the forest.

"You're the idiot!" Kuwabara yelled at her. "What were you thinking going out with Kurama dressed like that?"

"Don't even start that, you totally took advantage of Yukina today!" Hiei snapped at Kuwabara.

"At least I got to second base with her, which is more than you've ever managed!" Kuwabara replied.

"I was taking my time and being a gentleman!" Hiei yelled. "I was laying the groundwork and being patient!"

"You were being an indecisive jerk!" Kuwabara yelled back. "Yukina was sick of waiting for you! She enjoyed herself better with me today than she ever has with you!"

Keiko gulped. She had always noticed that Hiei seemed to be strangely fond of Yukina, and she had also always wondered why Hiei and Kuwabara argued so much – obviously this was why. Obviously Hiei and Kuwabara were both in love with Yukina.

"Will you two idiots stop?" Botan roared. "Stop arguing over my sister like she's an object for your own pleasure! If either of you ever lay a finger on her again, I will fucking murder you both!"

Keiko gasped: Yukina was Botan's sister? But how was that possible? One was a spirit and one was a demon, and Yukina had only ever mentioned having a brother before.

"Oh, give it a rest," Kuwabara sighed, putting his hands on his hips in a decidedly effeminate manner. "You're never around, and you won't even admit that Yukina is your sister: you don't have any right to tell her what to do with her life."

"My sister, unlike you, is a pure and innocent girl," Botan growled. "And I intend to ensure that she always remains that way, for her own good!"

"Well excuse me Mister," Kuwabara scoffed. "I may not be an angel myself, but I'm no whore."

Kuwabara made a point of deliberately looking Botan up and down.

"I'm every bit as pure and innocent as your sister in that respect," Kuwabara continued. "I may have kissed and stroked a few girls in my time, but I've never had penetrative sex before."

"Gees!" Hiei yelped. "Do you have to say it like that? I didn't need to hear that about you!"

"Don't listen to her," Botan said, smirking at Kuwabara. "She's lying. I got three fingers up there earlier tonight without any effort."

Keiko felt something pop inside her head. It could have been a vein or it could have been the logical part of her brain exploding. Botan had put her fingers inside Kuwabara? Where had she been when these things had been happening? Then, as she thought about it more carefully, it started to make sense. She had witnessed firsthand what a lush Botan could be: two root beers and she had her tongue down Shizuru's throat faster than Keiko could say Katy Perry.

"How dare you?" Kuwabara growled.

"How could you?" Hiei asked. "That's disgusting! Have you got no shame?"

"You took my innocence away, you wicked monster!" Kuwabara wailed.

"Your innocence?" Botan echoed. "Hn, not likely. There was no resistance in the slightest. You loved it."

"I did not!" Kuwabara protested, his voice breaking as he began to cry. "This isn't fair!"

"That is a bit much," Hiei said in a low voice. "And when did you even have the time to put your fing – I mean to touch – I mean… When?"

"On my date with Kurama," Botan replied. "He wanted to watch."

Keiko dropped the bag of seed she had been carrying. Kurama had wanted to watch Botan put her fingers inside Kuwabara? This was a side of Yusuke's friends that Keiko had never wanted to know about. She had always thought, deep-down, that Yusuke's involvement with the spirit and demon worlds would one day lead him down a dangerous path to his own ruin, but she had expected it to come in the form of an invisible foe who would obliterate Yusuke in a fight: she had certainly not expected it to be that Yusuke would be reduced to a quivering wreck by the insanity of his own peers. And although Yusuke had not yet been reduced to a quivering wreck by the insanity of his own peers, Keiko just had.

"You dirty, filthy, heartless menace!" Kuwabara cried.

"That is seriously messed up," Hiei said, nodding his head.

"How could you?" Kuwabara asked. "I mean really, how could you? I thought Kurama was your friend! How could you even think about putting your fingers in my… While he was watching?"

"You put your hands all over Yukina!" Hiei argued.

"That wasn't the same thing at all!" Kuwabara argued back. "And I was doing you a favour! Now you can kiss Yukina as much as you want – I've opened that door for you!"

"Forget about that," Botan interrupted them. "What about Mukuro?"

"What about Mukuro?" Hiei asked.

"How do I know that you didn't humiliate me when you went to meet with her today?" Botan demanded.

"I behaved like a real man, unlike you!" Hiei shouted.

"That's exactly what I'm concerned about!" Botan shouted back. "Your idea of behaving like a "real man" involves behaving like a pussy-whipped panty-waste, and that's not the sort of way I would ever behave around Mukuro!"

"Maybe she liked the way I treated her better than the way you treat her!"

"Are you challenging me for my woman?"

Keiko was completely confused. Was Botan gay? She had often displayed lesbian tendencies in the past, but Keiko had always just assumed that the ferry girl was bi-sexual – but with a preference for men. But now apparently Botan was dating a woman called Mukuro and she had put her fingers inside Kuwabara whilst Kurama watched. Was Kurama gay? And what about Kuwabara? He had always seemed quite old-fashioned and traditionally heterosexual to Keiko – a real man's man – but often those men were the most likely to actually be gay. But she still struggled to imagine Kuwabara wanting someone else to watch whilst a woman put her fingers in him.

When had everyone around her become this messed up?

"No, you know I'm in love with Yukina!" Hiei said.

"Yes, and we all know whose sister she is…" Kuwabara muttered.

"Stop creating drama!" Botan snapped at him.

"It's a good point though, right?" Kuwabara asked. "The two of you will have to learn to get along, for Yukina's sake."

Botan and Hiei glared at each other for a long time before both turning to glare at Kuwabara.

"I don't appreciate you kissing my sister either, idiot!" Botan said, pointing at Kuwabara.

"It wasn't sexual when I did it," Kuwabara replied.

"It was way more sexual than anything I've ever done with Yukina!" Hiei said.

"Neither of you should be doing anything sexual with Yukina!" Botan yelled. "And if either of you ever do, I will torture you both to death!"

"Both of us?" Hiei asked meekly. "Why do I have to die because of something she did?"

"He's threatening to kill us both so that we'll be scared of each other messing up and therefore not only will either of us ever touch Yukina ourselves, but we will also make sure that the other doesn't touch her either," Kuwabara explained.

"I'm confused…" Hiei said, scratching his head.

"It doesn't take much to bamboozle a simple mind!" Botan said.

"Never mind about that: how could you behave the way you did on my first date with Kurama?" Kuwabara demanded.

"Never mind about that: how could you behave the way you did on my date with Yukina?" Hiei demanded.

"Never mind about that: how could you behave the way you did during my meeting with Mukuro?" Botan demanded.

"Forget about that! How can I possibly explain what you made me do?" Kuwabara asked.

"Forget about that! How can I possibly explain what you made me do?" Hiei asked.

"Forget about everything!" Botan roared. "Why are we still in this ridiculous mess?"

All three fell silent and Keiko decided that she had heard enough anyway. In fact, she thought as she gathered up the fallen bag of bird food, she had heard too much. Way, way too much. As she straightened up again she happened to look over at the apparently deranged trio, and found all three of them looking at her.

"Hey Keiko," Hiei said. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Idiot, you should have sensed her standing there!" Botan snapped at him.

"Oh dear," Kuwabara said, touching a hand to the side of his face. "Are you alright Keiko?"

Keiko nodded and turned from them, hurrying back into the temple. Once inside she deposited the bag of bird food and quickly located Yusuke, hoping to confirm that he had not been infected by the madness that had apparently rotted the minds and corrupted the souls of Hiei, Kuwabara and Botan.

"Yusuke!" she cried as she found him about to sit down to play a video game with Genkai.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked her. "You like sh – I mean you look really pale!"

"Out there…" Keiko faintly replied, pointing in the vague direction of the front of the temple. "They said things that… Well, something's not right about them, Yusuke!"

"Who?" Yusuke asked.

"Botan and Kuwabara and even Hiei!" she replied. "They're out there, and they're talking about things – strange, sick things – and I think something might be wrong with them."

Yusuke glanced at Genkai, who shook her head. Keiko could have sworn that Yusuke was smiling, but when he turned to her again he looked serious.

"Tell me exactly what they said," he said.

Keiko told him what she had heard – though she tried to say it all as diplomatically as possible – and throughout her oration she noticed that Yusuke developed two separate twitches, one at one corner of his mouth and the other by the outer edge of one eyebrow, as though someone had threaded an invisible piece of string through his lip and eyebrow and was pulling on it infrequently.

Once Keiko had finished retelling what she had witnessed, Genkai started laughing.

"Finally, grandma!" Yusuke said. "Now you see how funny this really is!"

Keiko slowly turned around and walked out of the room. Apparently whatever madness had taken over Hiei, Kuwabara and Botan had also consumed Yusuke and Genkai.

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara stood at the top of a tree and looked down over Mukuro's headquarters. He was literally standing on the peak of the tree. It was something he had often seen Hiei do, and with small feet and a preternatural sense of balance, it was something that was strangely easy to do in Hiei's body. Also it looked really cool, especially when the wind blew his coat out to one side.

He was not looking forward to spending a night in that strange place. From his current vantage point he felt like he was looking through the Hubble Telescope at a head louse perched on a bald, dry and flaky scalp. Mukuro's headquarters was a hideous sight inside and out, and the sight was nothing compared to the stench, which was reaching him even up in the tree. It smelt like that dead thing on the riverbank that he liked to poke with a stick. And there were a series of strange sounds emanating from the belly of the strange fortress, terrified and desperate screams that sounded about as bad as the girls in fifth period gym class used to when they noticed Yusuke very unsubtly spying on them getting changed.

All in all it was not good, and Kuwabara just wanted to go back home – to his own home – and to sleep in his own bed. He scowled as he thought about Botan sleeping in his bed that night and going to college in his place the next morning. She had almost ruined things between him and Yukina, he hoped that she at least managed to behave herself during classes. He cringed as he thought about how she would react if some of his classmates invited her out for a game of basketball: if she said something about not wanting to break a fingernail, he would kill her. Except that killing her meant killing his own body, and if he did that, he might not ever get back to his own body, and the thought of being stuck in Hiei's body forever was not worth thinking about.

Kuwabara finally willed himself to hop down through the branches of the tree, as he had seen Hiei doing – only that part was a lot harder than Hiei made it look, as his hair and clothes got snagged a few times on the way down, causing him to slip and stumble and finally fall in an awkward heap at the base of the tree. He picked himself up again and ran the short distance to the entrance to Mukuro's headquarters, where he slowed and joined a group of demons entering.

"I heard Mukuro killed that guy without even moving!" one of the demons said.

Kuwabara gulped.

"I heard she sliced him open, wrapped his own intestines around his neck and choked him to death!" another demon said.

Kuwabara began to quietly hum his favourite Megallica song to cheer himself up – and Hiei's voice gave the melody a strangely gritty edge.

"Well I heard she slit his throat, nailed his feet to the ceiling and let him bleed to death!" a third demon said.

"What do you think happened, Hiei?" a fourth demon asked, turning to Kuwabara.

"Huh?" Kuwabara echoed.

"How do you think Mukuro kills traitors?" one of the demons asked.

"T-traitors?" Kuwabara repeated. "You mean like people who lie to her, double-agents, people from outwith her ranks who come here pretending to be someone else?"

"…No."

"Oh, good."

Kuwabara stopped walking and suddenly found himself surrounded by four demons of imposing size. It was possible that they were not much bigger than Kuwabara himself usually was, but from Hiei's reduced vantage point they looked like giants. Maybe everybody looked that way to Hiei – it was no wonder the little guy had such a chip on his shoulder.

"So what do you think, Hiei?" one of them asked him.

"I think I'm going to die here, in this horrible place," Kuwabara replied honestly. "There were so many things I never did – I wanted to marry Yukina, graduate from college, get a decent job. But I'm going to die here."

"Are you feeling alright Hiei?" one the demons asked.

Kuwabara shook his head.

"I can't believe this happened to me," he said faintly. "I'll never live to serve my life's true purpose."

"…Your life's true purpose?" one of the demons asked.

"Yeah," Kuwabara replied with a nod of his head.

"And what was that?" another demon asked.

"I dunno," Kuwabara said, shrugging slightly. "I think it was something about finding a lost piece of dynamite from spirit world that granted one time-travelling wish or else it was something about building a tree-house and topless ice maidens, I forget."

Kuwabara sighed and looked down at his feet as he scuffed the toe of one boot against the ground.

"And Urameshi told me last week that Megallica have split up now…" he muttered into his chest. "He said they had a fight, broke up and formed two separate bands: Mega and Licka."

Kuwabara paused.

"Wait a minute…"

He lifted his head abruptly, ready to ask the demons around him if they thought that Yusuke had perhaps been mocking him, but found himself suddenly very alone.

"Oh well," he sighed. "At least I don't have to worry about those guys killing me."

**

* * *

**

Botan's eyes were the size of dinner plates as she walked the halls of residence of Kyoto University. It was an all-male dormitory, and correspondingly she was surrounded only by young men – mostly naked and wet young men, chasing each other down the hallways with rolled up towels. Some of them were even on the ground wrestling each other, either entirely nude or else wearing little more than a towel wrapped around their hips that usually barely covered what it ought to.

She could not understand why Kuwabara was always complaining about his fellow dorm-dwellers: this was Botan's idea of nirvana.

"Hey, Kuwabara!" one random, semi-naked student greeted her.

"Hello handsome!" she replied, waving at him with a wiggling-fingered gesture and winking.

He seemed surprised at her response, though she could not think why.

"Kuwabara!" another student addressed her.

This one was completely naked, and followed his greeting with a series of worrying authentic-sounding dog barks.

"Woof woof yourself, baby," Botan replied, smiling coyly at him.

He seemed surprised at her response too: how odd, she thought.

"Hey, Kuwabara!"

Botan yelped as a hand suddenly smacked down heavily on her shoulder.

"Was it necessary to hit me so hard?" she asked, glaring accusingly at the young man walking at her side.

He slowly retracted his hand from her shoulder, pulling a face at her.

"Uh… Right…" he said slowly. "So anyway, me and some of the guys are going out to the lake tonight, are you in?"

"The lake?" Botan echoed. "Why would I want to go to a lake? Are you going fishing, perchance?"

He seemed even more confused at her response, but again Botan was at a loss to explain why.

"We were gonna drink a few beers, listen to some music, maybe invite a few girls…"

"Oh, I don't think Kuwabara is much of a drinker of alcohol, he might have a little hissy fit if I get him drunk."

Botan smiled at the now thoroughly lost looking man at her side.

"But thank you very much for inviting me," she said. "You're very cute, and it is difficult for me to refuse you anything, but I have to study and focus while I'm here. Goodnight, sweetie!"

Botan stopped at a door marked with the number Kuwabara had told her was his and she opened it to find a very small and plain room within. Kuwabara had told her that most of the students who lived in the halls of residence shared a room with another student, but, luckily for Botan, Kuwabara had a room to himself – which was probably another reason why the room was so small, as it was a single room, with just a single bed and a single desk and chair. She put her bag down on the bed and pulled out the desk-chair, her eyes growing larger as she did so: beneath the desk there were several piles of books that looked thicker and more complicated than the titles Koenma usually pored over in his office in spirit world. She knelt down and began pulling them out, one at a time, to inspect them closer.

""Quantum Physics: A Beginner's Guide"," she read aloud from the first, 800-page book. ""Engineering Mathematics and Theory: Intermediate Level". "The Principles of Thermodynamics: Intermediate Study". "Geology of Reservoir Rocks". "Megallica Official Sticker Album"…"

Botan pushed the books back under the desk. Maybe being Kuwabara was not as easy as she had thought it would be. She silently hoped that Hiei was not making a fool of himself in spirit world, and, as she so often did, she remembered then – a little too late to do anything about it – that she really ought to have warned Hiei about a certain group of individuals in spirit world who usually greeted her in a very specific way.

She hoped that Hiei would have a sense of humour about it and that he would not over-react.

**

* * *

**

Hiei fell from the oar, which disappeared before he had even hit the ground. He rolled over his own shoulder before standing up and marching briskly onwards, ignoring the incredulous looks he had earned himself from a nearby gathering of ferry girls. He continued to the door to the giant temple headquarters of all spirit world activity and knocked on the door expectantly.

"Botan, they're not letting us in right now," one of the ferry girls called over to him.

Hiei glared back over his shoulder.

"They said there's been a few petty thefts lately, we have to wait out here in a line, they're only letting us back in one at a time so that they can check we're not taking anything into the temple," the girl added.

"They want to check that we're not taking anything into the temple?" Hiei echoed. "If they think we're stealing, shouldn't they be checking that we're not taking anything out of the temple?"

The ferry girls all frowned and looked about themselves, and Hiei realised then that Botan's idiocy was not exceptional, she was just a token example of her kind: apparently all ferry girls in spirit world were completely stupid and worthless.

"I'm going in," he concluded.

He had knocked, he had waited and he had tried to be patient, but he refused to be stupid. He opened the door and stepped inside, walking several steps forward before realising what was happening ahead of him: a group of five ogres were standing around a ferry girl, her clothing loose and barely clinging to her body, and they were making a show of pretending to search her clothing for any stolen items, whilst actually just groping her as close to her bare skin as they could manage. One of them had removed her panties and was twirling them around his finger, and another had one of her sandals and was taking far too much pleasure out of sniffing it.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Hiei roared.

They all stopped and turned to him, and the ferry girl sobbed pitifully, trying to pull her kimono back up over her bared shoulders.

"We didn't call you through yet, Miss Botan, you have to wait in line with the others," one of the ogres informed him.

"Wait in line for what?" Hiei snapped back. "To let you put your hand up my ass? I don't think so, you ugly, balding oaf!"

"Whoa, calm down, Miss!" one of the ogres said. "We're just having a bit of fun!"

"You putting your hands all over me is not my idea of fun, fool!" Hiei hissed.

"But it's just a little bit of–"

"Let me past or die!"

The ogres all looked around each other curiously.

"Miss Botan, you wouldn't want us to report you to Lord Koenma for refusing to be searched, would you?" one of them asked.

"I don't give a flying fuck what you do," Hiei confidently replied.

When he found himself sat outside Koenma's office with bruises on his arms in the shape of ogre's fingers, Hiei started to think that maybe he had not behaved the way Botan would have in that situation. He hoped that Kuwabara was at least keeping his mouth shut and not saying anything stupid in demon world: but even as the thought entered his mind he almost laughed at the irony of it, since it was inevitable that Kuwabara would say at least one stupid thing while he was in demon world.

Hiei just wished that the whole mess had been fixed already.

**

* * *

**

In the next chapter of Ghost Fighter, Jenny decides to visit the Wizard of Oz because she gets bored. Along the way she's joined by Eugene the Scarecrow who needs a brain, Vincent the Tinman who needs a heart, Jericho the Lion who needs a backbone and also Dennis and Alfred are there too because I like them too much to miss them out. Along the way the Wicked Witch Charlene sends out some flying ogres to hinder the gang's progress to Neverland but they manage to fight them off. When they arrive they are all really disappointed to find out that the King of Narnia is in fact just Jeremiah, and the whole thing was another one of her ruses to help them all learn the importance of friendship.


	7. Scissor That Bitch

**A/N:** Apologies for my extended absence, RL and an addiction to Forumwarz stopped me from updating this last 2 weeks!

**WARNING: This chapter is especially outrageous. And I mean way, way more so than the previous chapters!**

In the last chapter of Ghost Fighter, Marybella Suwan met Vincent and he totally fell in love with her because she smelled like a good Sunday dinner (the kind mother used to make) and he wanted to chew on her neck, and Marybella totally fell in love with him, especially after she saw him go all sparkly in the sunlight and he told her she was like heroin – you know, dank, insipid, smelly, and guaranteed to give you a dose of the shits. But drama was afoot when Marybella found out that Dennis was also totally crushing on her because of her super-hot bland personality and passable attractiveness, and when she found out that he can turn into a big silvery dog-thing she almost died from the exhaustive drama of having two super-hot, super-powered guys drooling over her. Maybe something else happened, but I can't be sure – I never read the books, and after that one scene where our intrepid heroine (no pun intended) was almost rape-gang-banged and then rescued by our hero in his hatchback Volvo, I stabbed my eyes out and demanded a refund for the price of my ticket. (I didn't get the refund, but I did get a coupon for a free small soft drink the next time I go to the cinema, which was nice.)

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 7: Scissor That Bitch**

Kuwabara crawled out from under a pile of hay, ignoring the way the horses were staring at him, and got to his feet, relieved to still be alive. He had survived a night in demon world, in Hiei's body, which was better than he had been expecting. He thought about finding some chalk and keeping a tally on the stable wall of how many nights he survived, as a means of counting towards the day he got his own body back: but then he remembered that he had another five and a half weeks to go, and he did not really want to remind himself every morning how many more potentially deadly days he had left in demon world, pretending to be Hiei.

It was not that pretending to be Hiei was especially hard: basically it just involved ignoring everyone, looking aloof and walking as though he was hung like a shire horse – which he practically was anyway, so it was not really much of an act. The ignoring people was also especially easy, because Kuwabara did not want to talk to anyone in demon world or draw attention to himself anyway. He was still mastering the aloof look, but figured that he could probably find a mirror somewhere to practise in front of.

The hard part was not getting killed, knowing that Hiei was Yukina's brother and thinking about Botan pretending to be him. She was bound to mess something up – she could never even remember what the spirit detective items were for, even though she usually ended up carrying them around in a briefcase on every mission the team went on. And, after her performance with Yukina after just one date, Kuwabara was dreading what state the delicate little ice maiden would be in by the time he made it back to his own body: if she was not traumatised for life, she was at least likely to have gone off of him completely.

"Stupid Botan," Kuwabara grumbled, kicking at what he thought was a stone.

He paused, foot mid-air, as the stone exploded with a green cloud of stench. Apparently demon world horse-poop looked like giant pebbles. He wiped his foot in the hay a few times to clear the worst of the mess and then carried on, walking out of the stables completely to the red sky and constant thunderstorms of demon world beyond. He almost wished that he had not ended up in Hiei's body after the box incident, but, as he considered it in more detail, ending up in Botan's body would have been even worse. Yukina would not have wanted to date him in Botan's body, and Hiei would have had control of his body. The thought of Hiei sitting quietly through lectures and submitting essays on his behalf was even worse than the idea of Botan doing those things. He briefly considered how his circumstances might have been different if he had traded his body with anyone else – Yusuke, Kurama, Genkai, Keiko or even Yukina – and ultimately he decided that he had probably landed in the best body he could have ended up in.

Except maybe Yukina's. That might have been fun.

But being Hiei had to have some advantages, he thought. He could probably have some interesting fights in Hiei's body and maybe he could learn a little more about demon world – he had always been curious about the place after Yusuke, Kurama and Hiei had gone there for an entire story arc without him. Of course, going to demon world in Hiei's body had never been something he had ever wanted to do, but at least it meant he would not stand out. And he had the slight advantage of having Hiei's jagan eye – which he was starting to get accustomed to the feeling of – and he could check on the others any time he wanted to without actually going to see them and without their knowledge.

He could watch anyone at any time and in any place.

Kuwabara grinned. Maybe being Hiei could actually be fun. He pulled at the bandana around his forehead, which then mostly ended up caught in his hair – he still had no idea how Hiei managed to whip it off with one hand and without taking half his scalp with it – but as soon as he had freed the third eye he gave up trying to untangle the bandana from his hair, and instead began using the jagan eye to search for people he knew. He decided against looking for Botan, since sometimes ignorance was bliss, and he was afraid that he might find her sleeping at a desk and wearing something he would never normally be seen dead in. Instead he looked for Yukina, and found her in the gardens around Genkai's temple, tending to the plants and feeding the wild birds and the koi in the ponds. She was so sweet – and that thought made Kuwabara feel a little bit guilty for spying on her. He shifted his focus to Yusuke, and found him still asleep, which made Kuwabara feel even worse: Yusuke was supposed to be finding a solution to the soul-swapping dilemma, not sleeping in late and laughing at it at every opportunity he got!

Kuwabara decided to look for Genkai, since surely she would be doing something constructive and possibly interesting with her time.

Kuwabara found Genkai sat on a toilet with a strained look on her face.

Kuwabara quickly closed the jagan eye and tugged the bandana back down to cover it. The only thing worse than seeing Genkai in that position was the idea that Hiei might have seen others that way when seeking them out with his third eye; possibly Hiei had even seen Kuwabara like that.

Then Kuwabara was struck by an epiphany: Hiei's jagan eye had been surgically implanted, so then surely it could be surgically removed, to save everyone the embarrassment of Hiei possibly ever spying on them at an embarrassing moment!

Kuwabara set out to find a surgeon.

**

* * *

**

Being Kuwabara was easy. Botan could not understand why the tall red-head was always complaining about how much hard work being a student was: so far it had been a breeze for Botan. She had slept until ten in the morning, had breakfast in a cafeteria where the staff apparently knew and especially liked Kuwabara, as the lady with the hairy wart on her face had served Botan double-helpings of everything at no extra cost, and then Botan had made her way to a class where she had been assigned to work alongside a ludicrously attractive boy.

"Hey," the boy said as he turned his chair around to sit facing Botan across her desk.

"Well hello," Botan replied, smiling coyly. "That's a smashing blouse you have on."

The boy's face warped in a way that made him somewhat less attractive.

"It's a shirt," he carefully replied. "Blouses are what girls wear."

"…I knew that," Botan said, grinning awkwardly.

"…Right… Well, I'll take notes if you do the experiment."

"The what?"

The boy gave her a strange look, but Botan felt no less confused.

"The experiment?" he pressed. "The one we've been assigned to do today?"

He tapped the page Botan had opened her textbook to – opening the book had been the first and last thing she had understood in the instructions the class had been given.

"Right," she said, nodding slowly. "I'll get right on that then."

"Okay," her partner agreed.

She looked down at the pages for a long time before daring to look across her desk at her partner, who was, by then, glaring at her with a look of diminishing patience.

"I have a question…" she said slowly.

"What?" he asked.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing at an illustration on the page of her textbook.

"That's a test-tube," he replied.

"Oh… What's a test-tube?"

The boy's eye twitched.

"And what's Naoh?"

"N-Naoh?"

"Yes, Naoh."

Botan tapped the page again, pointing at the word she was referring to.

"That's says NaOH," her partner pointed out.

"That's what I said, Naoh!" Botan replied, feeling a little irritated at his lack of understanding.

"That's not "Naoh", that's NaOH," he said sternly.

"Okay fine, what's NaOH then, mister smarty-pants?"

"It's Sodium Hydroxide?"

"…What? But if they meant sodi… What you just said, then why did they write Naoh?"

"Na is the chemical symbol for Sodium and OH is the chemical symbol for Hydroxide."

"Well excuse me for not speaking chemical symbol language!"

Botan was almost too angry to notice the way her classmate was staring at her incredulously.

"So it actually means Sodi… Sodia…"

"Sodium Hydroxide."

"Right."

Botan picked up a pen and scored through "NaOH" on the page.

"Can you spell that for me?" she asked.

Her partner twitched.

"You do remember what Sodium Hydroxide is, right?" he asked.

"Of course I do, I'm not an idiot!" she snapped. "It's obviously Sodium and Hydroxide!"

Botan sighed and shook her head: she was so sick of people thinking that she was stupid. She would show him stupid, she thought darkly.

Two hours later, after being discharged from the hospital with second-degree corrosion burns to her hands and forearms, Botan started to think that maybe she should have read the textbook more carefully before proceeding with the experiment it depicted.

**

* * *

**

As punishment for calling Koenma's top security staff a bunch of flaccid cocks and then attempting to beat them to a pulp, Hiei had been assigned "the emo shift". Every shift on the rota the other ferry girls were following looked like the same old crap to Hiei – it was all just collecting the souls of dead humans anyway – but he was beginning to think that the emo shift was the worst of all.

"All life is pain, and death is the only release. But now I'm dead, I can still feel pain. Where's your god now, you conformist, oar-riding bitch?"

Hiei sighed and almost fell off his oar – he had still not quite mastered how to control the damn thing. He felt a little panicked as he regained his balance, but not because he feared falling to the ground, rather because he feared landing beside the pathetic wastrel ghost of a human he was trying to take to spirit world.

"You're a human, you don't know what real pain is," he said flatly. "Now stop your incessant whining and get on the oar."

"Why, so that you can take me to King Enma and he can send me to the afterlife where I'll suffer on for all eternity?" the ghost asked.

"Probably," Hiei replied. "Though if it was up to me, you'd be erased from existence for being such a pathetic waste of spirit energy."

"Is that supposed to make me want to come with you?"

"Listen you miserable bastard, I don't care how much you hated life or how much you hate death, so quit moaning about both and get on the oar!"

"You don't care about death? But you are death! And my friends told me that death was an end to the pain, that I could rest in peace and finally be free – that was why I killed myself!"

"You killed yourself? Your friends told you that death was easier than life, so you killed yourself?"

"They weren't really my friends. Nobody was. Friendship is a lie!"

"Did you at least do it in an honourable way like by saving your sister's life or a duel to the death with a worthy opponent?"

"All I ever wanted was to die, and now that I have, I wanna be alive again! Death sucks, there's nothing to do and nowhere to go! I can't drink coffee or smoke cigarettes any more!"

"Oh wait, the notebook says "autoerotic asphyxiation". That means you choked to death whilst masturbating. Well that was really dignified."

"I always felt like I belonged in a graveyard. I thought dying would be the best thing to ever happen to me!"

"By the sounds of it, it was the best thing to ever happen to everyone else around you. Well, apart from the embarrassment they faced finding you with a belt around your neck, your tongue hanging out and your hand still gripping your cock."

"You're not very helpful for a ferry girl."

"It's not my job to be helpful or to give you a shoulder to cry on. It's my job to take you to spirit world. You can't stay in the living world, so stop trying to."

"A shoulder to cry on?"

"Why is that the only part of what I said that you listened to?"

"So can I touch you? I can't touch anyone else around here."

"Of course you can't touch anyone else around here, you're a ghost, you idiot."

Hiei growled as the boy gripped a hand around one of his ankles.

"I can touch you!" he said, slowly removing his hand and staring at it in awe.

"So you can," Hiei said. "Which must mean that I can touch you. Good."

Hiei retrieved the metallic baseball bat he had been concealed up his sleeve and whacked the boy over the head with it. The ghost cried out in pain and fell over, but unfortunately remained conscious. Hiei hopped off the oar and tried smacking the boy over the head a few times more before coming to reluctant conclusion that ghosts could be hurt, but could not be rendered unconscious – he supposed that was because they technically already were unconscious. He gave the boy three or four more whacks to be sure before calling the oar back and throwing him over it.

"You can't force me to go to your fascist realm!" he complained.

"Nobody said that I needed your permission to take you there," Hiei flatly replied, jumping awkwardly onto the oar. "They just said that I had to get you there."

"But–"

Hiei smacked the boy again and took off for spirit world. He finished his shift in record time that day, collecting all the reluctant, lingering souls of whiny humans who were in denial about their deaths, but, despite being super-productive, he somehow found himself being brought before Koenma again, who again seemed angry.

"Botan, what is wrong with you today?" he yelled.

"Nothing," Hiei lied. "But you look a little fussy. Is that a teething issue or did you just shit your training pants again?"

"Botan!" Koenma yelped. "You're really testing my patience today! And why haven't you brought me Suzaku's new weapon yet? You were supposed to bring it here 2 days ago so that it could be safely sealed away!"

"Suzaku? Don't you mean Suzuki?"

"Suzaku, Suzuki, what's the difference?"

"To me, nothing really, but the fangirls get upset when you confuse them: they all have a thing for Suzaku because he's a bishie, whereas they don't really care for Suzuki because he's an arrogant prick, calling himself "The Beautiful Suzuki" when actually he's only moderately attractive."

"Right… Anyway, your behaviour lately is erratic and borderline psychotic! What's wrong with you?"

"I don't care what you think. All you ever do is stamp papers – without even reading them – sleep and eat. You disgust me."

"…If you don't start showing some remorse, I'll have you punished."

"Hn, I'd like to see you try."

"I mean it, Botan! If you don't stop acting out, you'll get a spanking!"

"Hn, you're the one who needs a spanking, you're the spoilt brat!"

Koenma narrowed his eyes and picked up his stamp.

"That does it," he said quietly.

Hiei made to give a sarcastic retort, but stopped short as two especially large ogres appeared from nowhere and started towards him.

"What the hell is this?" he asked.

He understood enough of Botan's body to know that it was incapable of fighting off two such powerful creatures, and even attempting to do so would be a complete waste of time and effort.

"I'm having you punished for insubordination!" Koenma yelled.

Hiei was not afraid of being punished – despite the fact that pain was significantly more painful in such a physically weak body – but he could not bear the humiliation of enduring such a punishment. He had always thought that Yusuke was exaggerating or just trying to be funny when he had told the others that spirit world actually used spankings as a method of disciplining their staff.

"Wait!" he said, holding up his hands.

The ogres stopped and Hiei turned his head to Koenma.

"This is stupid," he said.

"Oh, so I'm stupid too?" Koenma growled.

"…I'll let you watch me touch myself."

Koenma's pacifier fell out of his mouth and his eyes almost popped out of his head.

"But you have to keep your clothes on, and don't touch me or yourself," Hiei added.

"What is wrong with you, woman?" Koenma yelled. "Why would you say something as disgusting as that? Get out of here, ogres!"

The two ogres who had been approaching Hiei, along with the timid blue ogre who always seemed to be present at Koenma's side, all hurriedly left the room. Once they were gone Koenma picked up his pacifier and replaced it before clasping his hands together and resting them on his desk.

"Where?" he asked, his voice and demeanour suddenly calm.

"Where what?" Hiei asked.

"Where will you let me watch you touch yourself?" Koenma asked.

Hiei hesitated, mostly because he was surprised that his bribe appeared to be working – Koenma's outraged initial response had seemed so genuine, Hiei doubted that he would ever believe anything the prince of spirit world ever said again.

"Right here in your office?" he suggested.

"No, not where as in which location, I meant where as in which part of your body?" Koenma asked, his tone gaining an edge of irritation in it again.

"…All over?" Hiei offered.

"All over?" Koenma repeated.

"All over," Hiei confirmed. "I'll take off all my clothes, and you can watch me touch everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"Really everything?"

"Yes, really everything!"

"Even your lady bits?"

"Yes, damn it, even my–wait, what?"

Hiei arched his eyebrows at Koenma, who fidgeted slightly and began sucking harder on his pacifier, reminding Hiei that he was talking to an infant who was a resident of a world devoid of sex save for the antics of a few randy ogres.

"Yes, even my lady bits," he said mechanically.

"O-okay," Koenma agreed.

Hiei contained a smirk as he started to get undressed. He really had no idea why Botan complained so much: being a woman was far, far easier than being a man.

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara smiled nervously. Mukuro was glaring at him. She had been glaring at him ever since she had arrived at the cosmetic surgery to collect him after his failed attempt to have Hiei's jagan eye removed. How was he supposed to know that demons did not use anaesthetic and that having his forehead sliced open with a scalpel and then his skull drilled apart would be so excruciatingly painful?

"What the hell were you thinking?" she asked him.

"Uh…" he began. "Well… Actually… I dunno.

"Did you think that you didn't need the jagan eye any more?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Kuwabara agreed, silently hoping that she would believe his lie.

"Because you got the eye implanted to help you find your hiruiseki and your home," she said. "And now that you have found both of those things and your sister, you no longer need the third eye."

"Right, exactly!"

"Except for when you want to use any of your darkness flame techniques, including controlling the dragon you have in your arm."

"Oh, right, yeah… Guess I forgot about that…"

"You're acting like a total fuckwit today. What's wrong with you?"

"Um… I miss Yukina."

"So go and visit her."

"No, it's not really like that, it's more that… I feel kinda lonely."

"You like being lonely."

"Yeah, I do, because I'm a nasty little bastard who deliberately makes everybody hate me, but I meant that I want company, you know? Like girlfriend sort of company."

"You want to get laid?"

Kuwabara chuckled to himself but as he turned to the woman at his side and saw the look on her face, felt the tremendous aura of power radiating off of her and remembered that they were onboard a giant bug heading back to her giant bug castle, his laughter faded and was replaced by a feeling of nausea and apprehension.

"If you want a fuck, you should have just said so."

Kuwabara started to make several disjointed and absurd excuses, but Mukuro had already started to crawl across the deck towards him, a predatory gleam in her eye.

"N-no," he said faintly. "Please, not like this!"

She lowered her eyes and began to smile.

"Looks like you're already in the mood," she purred.

Kuwabara looked down and yelped at what he saw.

"No!" he hurriedly said, looking up at Mukuro again. "You don't understand! That happened because I was thinking about Yukina!"

"Thinking about your sister turns you on?" Mukuro asked.

"N-no, obviously not, I was just confused by the… What was the question?"

"Take off your clothes, lie down and stay quiet."

"Th-that's not a question. That sounds more l-like an order."

"It is an order."

Kuwabara screamed as Mukuro flattened him against the deck of the bug patrol vehicle.

**

* * *

**

Yusuke cursed as Genkai defeated him at another game of cards. He threw down his cards and scowled at her as she began gathering them up to shuffle the deck.

"I know you're cheating grandma, I just haven't figured out how yet," he spat irritably.

"You're just a sore loser, dimwit," she calmly replied.

Yusuke grunted and sat back in his chair. As Genkai finished shuffling the cards, the door to the room was suddenly whipped open and Kuwabara's body staggered in.

"Hey Botan," Yusuke greeted her. "Did you have a nice day at school?"

Botan growled and bared her teeth.

"What happened to your hands?" Genkai asked, nodding at her heavily bandaged hands.

"I burned myself with acid," Botan replied through tightly clenched teeth.

"Well that was stupid," Yusuke commented.

"I didn't know it was acid!" Botan snapped. "How could I have known? It looked like water to me! Why would I know what Sodium Hydroxide is when I've never had a use for it before?"

"Sodium Hydroxide isn't an acid," Genkai pointed out. "It's an alkali."

"What?" Botan echoed. "But it burnt my skin!"

"Yes, it would have," Genkai answered.

"Now I'm confused as well as sore and embarrassed!" Botan wailed.

"What is this, an opera?" Yusuke moaned. "Don't come in here declaring your emotions like that!"

"You'd better have found a way to get me back to my own body, Yusuke!" Botan said, ignoring Yusuke's little rant. "Today I burned myself with acid – or alkali or whatever – and lost Kuwabara a merit in chemistry class, I accidentally punched the university nurse in the chin when she was trying to check my wounds and then, when I got to the hospital to have my wounds treated, I humiliated myself in front of the doctor there! Being a man is so stupid! When I'm a woman, I only lose control of my hormones for a few days once a month, but when I'm a man I lose control of my hormones for a few minutes once an hour! I want my body back, Yusuke! I want it back right now!"

Yusuke nodded slowly.

"You lost control of your hormones?" he asked.

"I was attracted to the doctor and I got myself into a state of total… Arousal…"

Yusuke snorted.

"You did what?" Genkai asked.

Yusuke pulled a face at her, readying himself to ask her how it was possible that she could be ignorant to the facts of life, but, upon seeing the slightly sinister smirk on her face he kept quiet and waited to see which direction she was trying to steer the conversation in.

"I got aroused," Botan whispered, blushing slightly.

"So?" Genkai asked.

"So it was… Visible…" Botan meekly replied. "And as he was wrapping the bandages around my arms his wrists kept brushing against it…"

"Brushing against what?" Genkai asked.

"You're getting good at this, old lady," Yusuke whispered across the table.

Luckily for him, Botan was too flustered to have heard or realised what he had said.

"I had a parping great trumpet in my pants!" she wailed, waving her hands up and down in the region of her crotch as though to indicate her point.

"Trumpet?" Yusuke snorted. "More like a piccolo."

He turned to Genkai, who gave a "so-so" wiggle of her hand and shrugged.

"Aw, come on grandma, that was gold!" he complained.

"Are you mocking my manhood?" Botan growled.

"It's not yours to mock," Genkai pointed out.

"Do you think it's easy living with that in there?" Botan raged, pointing at her crotch. "It's got a mind of its own! It's like having a throbbing, vascular, one-eyed snake living in my underwear!"

Yusuke turned to Genkai and re-enacted the hand gestures Botan had just used as she spoke: he formed his thumb and forefinger into an "O" and peered through it, he wriggled his hands through the air and then pointed down at himself.

"This isn't funny, Yusuke!" Botan screamed, stamping a foot at him – a gesture that was almost devastating when delivered with Kuwabara's large feet in his hiking boots. "I want my lady bits back!"

"Lady bits?" Yusuke asked in a low voice. "Botan, we're all adults here, y'know."

"I want my lady bits back, Yusuke," she growled, ignoring his words. "I can't stand to wake up another morning, look down at myself and see that "thing" staring back up at me looking all purple and creamy!"

"Purple and…?" Genkai began.

"I told you before, Botan!" Yusuke said firmly. "You need a release at least once every three days!"

"I refuse to play with Kuwabara's man bits!"

"Damnit Botan…"

Yusuke sighed and rolled his eyes, but quickly found his grin again as Botan's body staggered into the room, kimono askew and pink eyes almost feral.

"Tough day, Hiei?" he asked.

Hiei grumbled out something indecipherable.

"Your day can't possibly have been any worse than mine!" Botan snapped at him. "I can't do this any more!"

"Hn, you don't know what a bad day is, idiot," Hiei growled back. "Rearrange the following words: masturbate me watched Koenma, and his pants in he came."

Botan rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling and frowned pensively, one finger bouncing in the air as her mind processed what Hiei had just said.

"Did you just say masturbate?" Yusuke asked.

Hiei gave him a flat look.

"I don't understand," Genkai said slowly. "Koenma watched you masturbate and he came in his pants?"

"What?" Yusuke echoed as Botan squeaked and gasped in horror.

"How is that physically possible?" Genkai continued. "I assume he was in his adult form?"

Hiei slowly shook his head, blue ponytail flicking from side to side.

"Toddler," he said, as though it was a forbidden word.

Genkai frowned.

"Toddler?" she asked. "And you're sure it was cum and not urine?"

"I know what jizzum looks like, old lady," Hiei darkly replied. "I do have a penis. Or at least, I did have a penis until he stole it from me!"

He pointed a finger at Botan, who gasped again.

"And by him I mean that face, not that soul," Hiei corrected himself.

"I don't understand how a toddler could have the testicular capacity to produce semen?" Genkai mused.

"That's disgusting," Yusuke said. "I'll never be able to look that little brat in the eye again!"

"This girl is a lot more flexible than you might think," Hiei told him. "I can get her ankles right up around the back of her head. It makes for quite an erotic sight."

"Show me?" Yusuke asked.

"No!" Botan wailed. "No, no, no!"

"If you hadn't broken that box, you wouldn't be in this mess," Hiei reminded her. "And do you really think it was any fun for me to witness a pre-schooler expend his love-juice?"

Botan began yelling incoherently at Hiei, but shortly stopped again as Hiei's body entered the room, his face pale, his eyes hollow and his hands visibly quivering.

"Kuwabara," Yusuke said to him, nodding in greeting. "You look awful. Bad day in demon world?"

"I ate something grey, slimy and sticky that tasted like sand and snot," Kuwabara quietly replied. "I saw many things I never wanted to. And then… I was raped!"

"What?" Hiei roared, rounding on Kuwabara.

"I tried to make her stop, but she was just too scary!" Kuwabara whimpered. "It was just easier to just lie there and wait for her to finish! And oh god, it went on, and on, and on, and on, and–"

"You had sex with my woman?" Hiei yelled.

"Alright, Kuwabara!" Yusuke cheered. "How does it feel to be a real man?"

"Shut-up Urameshi!" Kuwabara yelled. "It wasn't voluntary!"

Hiei threw himself at Kuwabara and began pummelling his chest with his fists. He continued his assault until he was breathless, stepping back to realise that a ferry girl's strength was useless against his own body.

"I hate this pitiful, pathetic, weak, worthless creature I'm stuck inside!" he snarled.

Botan raised a fist as though to hit him but then paused as she remembered that she would be hitting – and therefore injuring – herself, and so she turned to Kuwabara and punched him hard in the side of the head, sending him staggering back into the wall.

"What the hell was that for, Botan?" he cried, rubbing at his temple.

"That," she said, pointing at Kuwabara and turning to Hiei, "was for ruining my life! Now you have a black eye, and you got it from Kuwabara's fist! I hope it hurts!"

"That was out of line, Botan!" Kuwabara said, stomping over to rejoin the others. "How would you like it if I abused your body whilst in this body?"

"Wh-what?" Botan echoed, faltering in her confusion.

"Watch this!" he replied, leaping at Hiei.

Hiei screamed as Kuwabara grabbed at his chest and Botan cried out in alarm.

"How do you like this, Botan?" Kuwabara sneered. "Or how about this?"

Hiei tried to push Kuwabara off but to no avail as he pushed his face in between his hands. Botan grabbed at her hair and wailed as she watched Hiei's body molest her body, not wanting to do anything to hurt herself but also desperate to end the moment as quickly as possible: but before she could think of a way to end to torture, Kurama entered the room and grabbed Kuwabara by the hair, tearing him from Hiei forcibly. Kuwabara yelped as he looked up to see Kurama leering over him, his green eyes tinged with gold and his anger almost making him glow.

"I can explain all of this," Kuwabara said nervously.

"So can I!" Botan said hurriedly. "Botan's innocent, it's all Hiei's fault!"

"Hn," Hiei grunted, adjusting his clothing.

Genkai and Yusuke hurriedly separated Kurama and Kuwabara before the fox demon started venting his anger.

"You three should talk," Yusuke suggested as he and Genkai forced Kurama from the room.

They bustled Kurama out of the room and closed the doors, leaving Kuwabara, Hiei and Botan alone. They stood in silence at first, slowly looking around each other.

"This is a terrible, terrible mess!" Botan began.

"None of it is my fault!" Kuwabara argued. "I'm an innocent in all of this!"

"I can't go back to spirit world," Hiei spat. "The place is so repressed it's at bursting point. Also I need sex. And I mean real sex, where I can be the man."

"Maybe you should have gotten Kuwabara's body," Botan said tensely. "He seems to be constantly ready for sex!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kuwabara echoed. "Are you calling me a pervert? Because if you are, you're a damn hypocrite, Botan! You've played tongue hockey with more girls than Urameshi, and you're supposed to be straight!"

"Sexuality is defined differently outside of the human world," Hiei pointed out. "In demon world, it doesn't really matter what type of sex or being you want to be with. And in spirit world, they never talk about it and never do it, so she's probably just acting out of frustration."

"Don't defend her!" Kuwabara protested.

"I'm not frustrated!" Botan told Hiei. "And do you really think I've enjoyed watching Hiei whore my body out to Kurama?" she asked Kuwabara.

"That was karma for what you did with my body and Yukina!" Kuwabara replied.

"We need to stop bickering and fix this mess!" Hiei shouted. "Shit… If I thought this ferry girl body could withstand the environment in demon world, I'd go there right now and spend the night with Mukuro."

"Mukuro's not gay," Kuwabara pointed out. "And she's proper not gay, not half-assed, faking it, not gay like Botan!"

"…What?" Botan grunted.

"I already told you, it doesn't matter in demon world," Hiei said with a sigh. "If I thought I could go to demon world in this body I'd go there right now, find Mukuro and scissor that bitch senseless."

"…What?" Kuwabara muttered.

"I'd fucking scissor her brains her out," Hiei growled.

"…Scissor?" Kuwabara asked.

"It's how two women have sex," Botan explained.

"Oh, it figures you would know how two women have sex, Botan!" Kuwabara snapped. "…But I still don't get why it's called "scissor"?"

Botan pointed the index and middle fingers of both her hands downwards and began walking them through the air towards each other.

"Well, you have two sets of legs like this," she said. "And then when they love each other very much, they give each other a special hug like this."

She jammed the joints of her fingers together and began scissoring them in the air to demonstrate her point.

"Oh God no!" Kuwabara wailed.

"You asked!" Botan said, separating her hands and shrugging innocently.

"Well if I thought I could date Yukina in this body, I'd do that too!" he said. "But I can't, because that would be incest, and also I don't want these grubby little hands touching my one true love!"

"Well if I thought that Kurama would date me in this body, I'd be with him in a heartbeat!" Botan said.

"I don't want any part of Kurama's naked body touching any part of my naked body," Kuwabara warned her.

"It's all theoretical, idiot!" Hiei snapped. "I can't go to demon world, Kurama won't date a man and if you make my hands touch my sister in a sexual way, I will kill everyone."

"Define "everyone"?" Kuwabara asked.

"Kurama might date a man," Botan muttered. "He dated Hiei…"

"Only while my soul was in a woman's body!" Hiei corrected her.

"Hey, Botan, didn't you go to demon world to watch the demon world tournament?" Kuwabara asked.

Botan glared at him and Hiei snapped to attention.

"So that must mean that your body could survive in demon world, so Hiei could go to demon world in your body," Kuwabara added.

"And I could go on a date with Kurama in your body, because, conveniently, your body goes to the same university as Kurama," Botan said flatly.

"Oh yeah?" Kuwabara sneered. "Well I could still hang out with Yukina, because she would trust me because she knows this body is her brother!"

Hiei, Botan and Kuwabara all glared around each other suspiciously.

"You need to pass my classes," Kuwabara warned Botan. "And… Wait, what the hell did you do to my hands?"

"You only just noticed?" Botan muttered.

"And you need to go back to demon world," Hiei reminded Kuwabara.

"And you need to go back to spirit world!" Botan said to Hiei.

They all turned from each other, and, out of sight of the other two, each grinned slyly.

**

* * *

**

In the next chapter of Ghost Fighter, Eugene faces a conundrum when he acquires the Fire Stone: should he use it to force Vincent to evolve into Flamodragon or not? Force-evolving his pocket-sized friend could forever alter his personality, and Eugene has to decide the way forward. Meanwhile, Alfred gets his hands on the Leaf Stone and plans to use it on Dennis to evolve him into Rosefoxy, but by mistake he uses Eugene's Fire Stone, and instead of evolving Dennis into Rosefoxy, he evolves him into Vulpix. Jeremiah warns the gang that this is bad news, because if Vulpix is ever allowed to eat ramen after mid-night during the hours of darkness, he will evolve into Naruto, and nobody wants that asshole hanging around. Jericho tries to lend a hand to fix the mess, but in doing so, accidentally uses the Moon Stone on Charlene, who evolves into Espeon. Chaos ensues when Team Rocket show up to kidnap all the Pokemon, but in the end they only take Puu, since he's the only real Pokemon in Ghost Fighter anyway (he's the result of evolving Fearow with a Water Stone).


	8. Throbbing Great Man Sausage

In the last chapter of Ghost Fighter, these shoes were three hundred fucking dollars, but Dennis said "let's get them" and "let's party". Alfred wanted to borrow Eugene's top, but he was being a betch and wouldn't lend it to him, so Alfred threatened him with something hard and sandpapery. Vincent called them all shetbags and Jenny officially declared Eugene a deck for using text message break up and then trying to have a booty call with her. Jeremiah warned Charlene that boys just want in her tutu and that tattoos are from the deville, and Suzzie started her organic vegan girl-on-girl sandwich tour for her Greatest Tits album.

**A/N:** OMFG, "sandpapery" is actually a word!!! Now let's get some shoes!

* * *

**Chapter 8: Throbbing Great Man Sausage**

To avoid suspicion, Kuwabara spent the night in demon world, taking a tip from Hiei and sleeping in a tree. Unlike Hiei, Kuwabara did not sleep up in the branches, rather he found himself a hollow tree crawled into it and slept there – until he awoke to find a mouse chewing at something near the tree roots, at which point he got up, screamed and ran off to find another hollow tree, where he spent the rest of the night having nightmares about Biker Mice from Mars. The next morning when he awoke, he wasted no time going back to the living world and to commence his search for Botan, who was meant to be sitting a mid-term exam for him that morning. When she failed to turn up as the desks in the exam hall filled, Kuwabara panicked, lost the ability to think logically and sat himself down at a desk, in Hiei's unwashed body, tree-bark dirtied hair and clothes, and he proceeded to take the exam as he ought to have been doing.

Surprisingly, nobody seemed to notice or even to care that there was an unfamiliar face sat amongst them.

Kuwabara had a plan: he was going to incapacitate Botan and hide her in his dorm room, and then he was going to live his own life in Hiei's body. He was going to attend as many classes as he could without being found out, and he was going to tell Yukina the truth about the fate that had befallen him. He was confident that his plan would work: he had already proved that, in a large room with everyone focussed on something else, he could still attend most of his classes and exams, and he was sure that a sympathetic and understanding soul like Yukina's would understand what had become of him and she would forgive and accept his circumstances.

But mostly Kuwabara just wanted to let Yukina know that it had been Botan who had been behaving like such a slut around her lately and not him.

He did not know – nor did he really even care – where Botan was or what she was doing. She had probably either slept in or gone to cry somewhere, he concluded. As long as she was not crying in front of anyone he knew, he did not care, and if she was crying in front of someone he knew, he had already prepared an elaborate excuse he would later tell that person involving a medicine cabinet mix-up he had suffered when he had gone in search of some Alka-Seltzer.

To help avoid attracting any more unwanted attention towards himself, Kuwabara hurried through the exam and raised his hand to have his paper collected so that he could leave early, rather than amongst a rush of bodies, at least one of whom was likely to notice that he was not a regular student in that class. The invigilator diligently marched up to Kuwabara's desk to collect his papers and Kuwabara looked up at him with a smile. The invigilator – despite being a stern looking older man – yelped like a Chihuahua that had just been kicked in the genitals and flinched back fearfully. Kuwabara was not really sure which part of his face had startled the old man: his red eyes or his smile, which had a tendency to be more of a maniacal grin on Hiei's face, as though he lacked the ability to smile genuinely. The invigilator muttered out something incoherent and reached out a shaking hand towards Kuwabara's papers. Kuwabara gladly stood up and pushed his chair in, pausing long enough to screw up his face at the old man as a cocktail of sweat and urine wafted over him and to contemplate using his jagan eye to find out exactly what was going through the man's mind.

It was all really too much information, Kuwabara decided as he walked off. Being a demon was like being all-knowing, but it turned out that most things were better left unknown. There was indeed bliss in ignorance, and he intended to tell Hiei as much the next time he called him an ignoramus. Maybe, he thought, all those times Hiei had insulted his intelligence and cluelessness had in fact been just Hiei lashing out in a jealous rage because he wished that he was not quite as perceptive as he was.

Outside, Kuwabara quickly made his way to Genkai's temple, where he found Yukina knelt in the gardens, feeding wild birds from the palms of her hands – a tranquil and heart-warming sight that quickly turned sour as the birds spotted Kuwabara's approach and went into a frenzied panic. Feathers were shed and poop and seed were sprayed everywhere as the birds squawked and flapped about desperately trying to escape. Once they had gone, they left Yukina behind with her arms over her head and a mess on the ground all around her. She slowly slid her arms down again as Kuwabara gingerly approached her, grinning nervously: and when she saw the grin on his face she flinched and her eyes momentarily took on the same look the invigilator in the exam hall had taken on when Kuwabara had grinned at him.

"M-mister Hiei," she said carefully. "Good afternoon."

"Hey Yukina," Kuwabara replied, kneeling down in front of her.

She frowned slightly as she began dusting seed hulls from her hair.

"I have something really important to tell you," he said.

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

"It's about who I really am," he said.

Her face softened and she lowered her hands to her lap, clasping them together.

"This is kinda difficult for me to admit to, Yukina," he said.

She smiled.

"And I wanted to tell you before, I just didn't know how to without frightening you or confusing you or just plain upsetting you," he continued.

"I'm not frightened, confused, or upset," she said gently.

"Well you might be when you hear what I have to tell you," he said with a wry smile. "I've been hiding something from you, a secret, and I just feel awful, Yukina, because I adore you and I respect you so much and I've never lied to you about anything before now, so I want to be honest with you about everything, including this one thing."

"I already know what you're trying to tell me, and I want you to know that I adore and respect you too."

Yukina put her hand on Kuwabara's. He stared at it for a long time before slowly lifting his eyes to hers, finding her smiling and almost tearful. She nodded her head to confirm that she meant what she had just said, but still he could hardly believe it.

"I always have," she added.

"R-really?" he asked.

"Of course."

"Because I knew you were the one I was looking for the moment I first laid eyes on you, Yukina!"

"It was the same for me."

"Really? Oh wow! I guess Botan didn't mess things up as badly as I thought! Actually… Maybe she was right… Maybe she did make things better…"

"Botan never betrayed your secret to me, though I think she came close a few times. I could tell by the way she was acting that what was really going on. But please don't be mad at her, she had my best interests at heart every time she almost revealed the truth."

"Yeah, I guess Botan isn't so bad. So anyway, I was uh, just wondering it we could um, I dunno, maybe spend some time together today?"

Yukina smiled and gripped Kuwabara's hand.

"I would love that," she said.

"Really?" he echoed.

"Of course, brother!"

"Well that's just swell and I–wait, what?"

"I'm so pleased that you finally felt able to tell me that you're my brother, Hiei!"

"Uh…."

"I knew you were the brother I was looking for the first time I saw you – but at first I didn't think you knew. I thought, after the way you were so cruelly cast out of the ice village at birth, it was only proper to let you come to me if you ever wanted us to be a family."

"…Cast out of the ice village at birth? Well I guess that explains a few things…"

"Miss Rui told me all about how she was made to throw you over the edge of the cliff, and it broke my heart."

"Thrown from a cliff? I guess he must've landed head-first, which would explain the shape of his head and why he's so short…"

"I didn't want you to think that I would shun you like the other ice maidens did, but I also feared you might think that I pitied you."

"Hiei is kinda pitiable…"

"What made you change your mind about telling me? If you don't mind me asking, that is?"

Kuwabara drew in a breath and opened his mouth to answer Yukina, but the earnest look in her eyes stopped him short. He slowly sighed out the air again and let his shoulders slouch down.

"Yukina, I'm not your brother," he said quietly.

Her face twisted and her chest twitched as though he had just stabbed her in the heart.

"I mean, Hiei is your brother, but I'm not Hiei," he corrected himself.

She frowned and tilted her head to one side. He lifted her hand on his and reached over his other hand, enclosing her hand in both if his.

"I'm Kuwabara," he said softly. "There was an accident with Suzuka's soul-swapping magic box, and my soul was transferred into Hiei's body."

Yukina gasped, touching her free hand to her mouth. Kuwabara nodded sadly.

"Yeah," he said. "The last few days have been… Weird…"

"But…" she said faintly. "If your soul is in Mister Hiei's body, then Mister Hiei's soul must be in your body! And if that's so, was it Mister Hiei that kissed me and was so bold when we went on our date?"

"Actually no, it was–wait, our date? You admit that it was a date?"

Yukina looked too startled to even understand what Kuwabara was asking of her – but he had never heard her refer to one of their dates as a date before.

"It was Botan," he explained. "Botan's soul is in my body, my soul is in Hiei's body and Hiei's soul is in Botan's body."

"Oh my!" Yukina gasped. "How awful! But… I feel foolish for not noticing before. I should have realised that something was amiss after you behaved so strangely around me, Mister Hiei became so talkative and I twice caught Botan fondling her lady bits to the point of orgasmic release…"

"What?!"

"But what will you do? How will you get your own body back?"

Kuwabara tried to push aside Yukina's comment about Botan – or rather Hiei – masturbating openly and to think of a logical answer to her question. When he failed to rid himself of the image of Botan in such a position, he gave the only answer he could think of.

"Urameshi's fixing it for us."

"Yusuke?"

"Yeah."

"A-are you sure? He's been playing video games, training and sleeping at this temple for the last few days. I don't understand how any of those things could be helping you…?"

Kuwabara groaned.

"Damn Urameshi…" he grumbled.

He temporarily wallowed in his own anger at Yusuke – who apparently still thought his predicament was amusing – but he did not stay mad for long as he felt Yukina pull her hand from between his. He met her eyes questioningly but she looked away.

"It's a little strange for me," she said awkwardly. "You've been wooing me and now you're in my brother's body."

Kuwabara hurriedly shook his head.

"It doesn't matter though!" he quickly said. "It's what's on the inside that counts, right? And I may be Hiei on the outside, but I'm one hundred percent Kazuma Kuwabara on the inside!"

"It's just that… You asked me to spend time with you today: did you mean to spend time together as sweethearts?"

"Yes!"

"But you're in my brother's body! I couldn't possibly even think of…"

"Just don't think about it, my love!"

"Please don't call me a pet name in my brother's voice."

"I can't help the whole nasal monotone thing, it seems to come with the body."

"That's not what I meant."

Yukina stood up abruptly and Kuwabara hurriedly copied her, silently wondering whether or not being on eye level with her when stood up was a good thing.

"You have to get yourself sorted out," she said firmly.

"I know, I'm stuck like this for six weeks unless Urameshi can find a cure," he replied. "I've tried to live as Hiei, but I can't be him, and I can't stand watching Botan mess up being me, so I've decided to just live my own life in this body."

"…I don't understand…"

"I sat an exam this morning and I think I can still go to most of my classes without anyone noticing, and I still want to spend time with you, Yukina. And now that you know the truth and you know that it wasn't me who was kissing you and groping you like that, I was hoping we could go on a date this afternoon?"

Yukina suddenly started to look a little frightening, and Kuwabara became acutely aware of the fact that she was a demon.

"You're in my brother's body!" she said. "I couldn't possibly even think of dating you like that!"

"But you always said that true beauty came from within, and within this body, I'm still your man!"

"Please don't call yourself my man in my brother's voice!"

"I can't control the voice–"

"I don't want to hear and see my brother prostrating himself before me like that!"

"What about my prostate?"

Yukina yelped, spun on her heels and ran off.

"…Well that could have gone a lot better…" Kuwabara muttered miserably.

**

* * *

**

Botan placed down a lunch tray on the table and stepped over the bench to sit down, inadvertently kicking the legs of the table and then Kurama's shin as she tried to manoeuvre Kuwabara's large feet beneath the table.

"Kuwabara," Kurama greeted her, not so much as flinching when she kicked him. "To what do I owe the pleasure this time?"

He looked a little tense, but Botan was determined. After a disastrous day as Kuwabara, she was going to tell Kurama the truth about what had happened with Suzuka's invention – Kurama had a right to know, she had decided, since all the rest of the spirit detective team knew, and of them all, Kurama was the most sensible and trustworthy – and she needed to explain to him that she had not been the one to dress like a whore and then proceed to act like one on their date.

She did not care what Kuwabara or Hiei thought about what she was about to do – they had gotten her into this mess, now they could take the shame of Kurama finding out about it.

"I hope you do have a reason for sitting with me," Kurama said, awakening her from her thoughts with his oddly dark tone. "Because I've told you before that I don't appreciate you using me as an excuse to avoid your female fan-club."

"Wh-what?" Botan stuttered.

"I don't appreciate you sitting with me on the basis that those girls think I am either your girlfriend or your very effeminate boyfriend, and thus they stop pestering you," Kurama replied. "You are welcome to sit here as my friend, but please don't pretend that to be the case if you are only here to avoid your groupies."

Botan balked.

"Kuwabara really has groupies?" she asked. "Really? I thought that was just a story he made up!"

Kurama frowned slightly, and Botan then realised that what she had just said had probably sounded odd coming from Kuwabara's mouth.

"No, I need to tell you something," she said. "It's about Suzuka's invention."

"It's gone missing, I know," he replied.

"Golly, nothing gets by you, Kurama!"

Kurama frowned slightly again.

"You're so sensitive to your environment and so keen and attentive and intelligent and dreamy…"

Botan did not realise that she had been stroking Kurama's arm across the table until he slid it back out of her reach.

"I admit I wanted to study the weapon, and I intended to take it for myself," he said, his tone a little strained. "But I couldn't find it. All I did find was this."

Kurama played his fingers through his hair and produced a folded up note. Botan watched with interest as he opened it out and held it up for her to read.

"IOU one box," she read aloud.

"It's Yusuke's handwriting," Kurama said, folding the note up again. "I don't understand why he would take it; I can only think that he underestimated its powers."

"He didn't take it," Botan said. "I don't know why he wrote that note, but the box doesn't really exist any more. It was broken into three pieces, you see."

"It was activated?" Kurama asked, his back straightened and his eyes widening. "Where? When? And by who?"

"…It was all Hiei and Kuwabara's fault! They were fighting over the box because Hiei wanted to take it to demon world and Kuwabara wanted to keep it in the living world, but it was meant to go back to spirit world, so I tried to make them stop, I tried to take the box from them, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in Kuwabara's body!"

Kurama's eyes doubled in size, and for the first time ever, Botan saw him look flustered.

"I'm Botan!" she explained, mistakenly interpreting his twisted and uneasy expression as one of confusion.

"You… Swapped bodies with Kuwabara?" he asked in a low voice. "So on our date when you lay out on my bed and… That was Kuwabara?"

It was Botan's turn to screw up her face as Kurama suddenly turned very pale and convulsed slightly as though he might bring up his half-eaten lunch.

"No," she hurriedly explained. "We didn't swap bodies directly. We sort of swapped up to a more powerful body, except Hiei, who swapped down to the least powerful body."

Kurama regained a little of his colour, but began to look confused.

"My soul was transferred into Kuwabara's body," Botan explained. "Which has been like getting a power-promotion, because this body is surprisingly strong, you know. And Kuwabara's soul transferred into Hiei's body, which means he got a more powerful body too. And then Hiei… Hiei's soul transferred into my body. Hiei was the one who went on my date with you and behaved so… Coquettish."

"Hi…?" Kurama responded, the first syllable of Hiei's name leaving his lips through a strained, breathy, sigh.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Botan replied, clasping her hands together on the table. "We didn't tell anyone that we had broken the box and activated its power because we hoped that we could fix our problem quickly, and so rather than worry everyone else unnecessarily, we agreed to live each others' lives and pretend nothing had happened. Unfortunately though, being Kuwabara is a lot harder than it looks, and I can't bear the thought of what Hiei's been doing with you, far less how he must be behaving in spirit world…"

"Hi…?"

"Yes."

"Hiei?"

"Yes."

"That was… Hiei?"

"Yes."

Kurama sat back slightly and his face paled again.

"Are you alright, sweetie?" Botan asked.

Frowning in concern, she leaned over the table and gently stroked the backs of her fingers down one side of his face. He turned paler still and his eyes moved to something at his side. Botan turned her head to see what had caught his attention and saw a group of four girls staring agape at them.

"What are they looking at?" she asked, turning back to Kurama.

"They're watching Kuwabara and me sharing an intimate moment!"

"Wha-ah!"

Botan stared at her hand, which Kurama and pushed down from his face. Kurama's hand was gripped almost painfully around her wrist holding her arm down against the table, and the sudden act of rejection left her feeling even more miserable about her predicament than ever, and her eyes began to blur with tears.

"I was just trying to do my duty and take the box to sprit world!" she wailed, moving her eyes to Kurama's. "Hiei and Kuwabara were fighting over it and I was just trying to stop them, and now look what's happened to me! I didn't ask for this! I don't deserve this! Do you have any idea what it feels like to have a throbbing great man sausage in your underpants that has a mind of its own and doubles in size and threatens to burst out anytime you even so much as think about something slightly erotic?"

Kurama paled further and turned his head to look over at the group of girls watching them.

"It's happening right now, even!" Botan sobbed, tears falling down her face. "Just being near you makes it all hard and pokey!"

She leaned back to look down at her lap.

"Oh goodness, it gets enormous when I'm around you, Kurama!"

She looked up at Kurama, and found him looking somewhat askew, as though he was having some kind of suppressed seizure.

"Oopsie!" she said, touching a hand to her mouth. "Here I am talking about man bits as if I'm an authority on the matter, but you already know way more about this than I do – you've had man bits all your life!"

Kurama's eyebrows jerked upwards, disappearing behind his hair.

"Oh my, how embarrassing!" Botan yelped, touching her hands to her cheeks as she began to blush violently. "Here I am talking to you about your man bits – I didn't mean to be so forward, Kurama!"

Kurama took one last look at the group of by now quite disturbed and confused girls watching them and then hurriedly got to his feet, grabbed a sleeve of Botan's shirt and dragged her from the cafeteria. Botan stumbled after him without complaint, feeling too awkward to argue: she really could not believe that she had just mentioned Kurama's genitals to his face! Surely that was the most embarrassing thing she had ever done!

"Listen carefully: I understand that the box was activated, and that you became a victim of its powers," Kurama said sternly as he jolted her to a halt on the lawn outside the cafeteria building. "But nobody else on this campus knows that, and nobody else on this campus can ever find out that you are a ferry girl trapped in the body of a powerful psychic because of a device manufactured by a demon. Do you understand?"

Botan frowned and Kurama sighed.

"What has happened to you is awful, I agree," he said. "But whilst you are here, surrounded by humans who recognise your body as Kuwabara, you can't act like yourself and talk about… We need to get out of here."

Botan nodded, wiping a tear from her eye.

"But first, will you give me a hug?" she asked.

"What?" he echoed, turning pale again.

"I haven't had a hug in days!" she moaned. "Usually I get lots of hugs – from my friends in spirit world and in the living world – but nobody ever hugs Kuwabara!"

"Please, keep your voice down–"

"I need a hug!"

"Alright!"

Botan gasped as Kurama grabbed his arms around her. It was a stiff, awkward, hips-apart, manly hug, but she did not care. She sighed and hugged him back, squeezing him as close to herself as she could and ignoring the way he fought to keep his hips back from hers – but she decided that was most likely because he was worried because she was still aroused, and he probably felt a little awkward about feeling Kuwabara's hardened penis pressed against his own manhood.

"Will you kiss me?"

"What?"

"I haven't kissed anyone in days! If you won't kiss me, at least let me kiss you!"

"I don't think that would be a good idea in such a public forum as this–"

"I need it!"

Botan leaned her head back to look Kurama in the eye and found him staring up at her with an uncharacteristically bewildered look on his face. He did not move, and so she decided to take a chance on just kissing him anyway, and leaning towards him. He made a small noise of alarm and leaned back, bending over backwards and turning his head to one side to avoid allowing their lips to come in contact.

"You have to try to understand this from my point of view, Botan!" he said.

"But it's me, Kurama!" she complained. "You should know better than anyone what my situation is!"

"I understand completely that the box was used and what it's done to you, but you still look, sound and smell like Kuwabara, and that's just a little… Awkward."

"I wasn't talking about the box."

"What?"

Kurama turned his head to look directly at Botan and she renewed her efforts to kiss him, at which he swiftly turned his head away again and put his hands on her chest, holding her back.

"Not the box," she said. "I meant that you too have your soul trapped in someone else's body, a body that is in no way a true reflection of who and what you really are, so you ought to be sympathetic to my situation!"

Kurama lessened the pressure on Botan's chest and slowly turned his head to look directly at her again.

"Yes, I do understand that," he said quietly. "And your sympathy and understanding of my situation in that respect was just one of the reasons I wanted you for my lover."

Botan gasped and became teary-eyed again.

"But we need to fix your situation," Kurama insisted. "I don't think Kuwabara would appreciate me kissing his body, and I wouldn't feel comfortable with it either. You're not in just any wrong body, you're in the body of a comrade of mine. Do you understand?"

"I kissed Yukina…" she muttered, pouting sulkily.

"You kiss girls all the time," he pointed out.

"You kissed Hiei," she said.

"Hiei wouldn't let me kiss him – you – him in your body. He allowed me to kiss him on the cheek, but no more."

"And the way he dressed on our date and the things he did… You must have been disgusted with me!"

Kurama's eyes wandered from Botan's for a moment, and she was sure she saw a hint of colour briefly grace his cheeks.

"You were disgusted, right?" she asked.

"Disgusted isn't the right word to describe how I felt," he diplomatically replied.

"Oh dear…"

**

* * *

**

Hiei flew through the corridors of Mukuro's lair, ignoring the way demons around him were staring. It was quite amusing that none of them had attempted to stop him, he thought, especially as he was in the body of a ferry girl in a baby pink kimono and with powder blue hair, both of which seemed especially pronounced against the dull browns, greys and blacks of his surrounding environment, making him all the more conspicuous. He could have been a spy from spirit world, but everyone else was apparently too shocked by his presence to make that deduction, and so he was allowed free passage.

Hiei had spent a day as a ferry girl, and he was not about to spend any longer in that guise. He had always despised spirit world, and in one day of living and working there, he had learned far more about the place than he had ever wanted to. So he had decided to return to demon world, tell Mukuro what that idiot human and that idiot ferry girl had done to him, send Kuwabara back to the living world and attempt to live his own life in the ferry girl's body until Yusuke found a way for him to get back to being himself again.

Hiei took himself to his own chambers, where he quickly shed the ferry girl clothing and tried to dress himself in some of his own clothes. His pants were uncomfortably tight across the hips and too short in the legs, his boots only fit after wrapping his feet in several layers of bandages to bulk them up a bit and his vest was too baggy at the shoulders and too short to fully cover his torso. He did not have a mirror in his room – he had never wanted or needed one – but he suddenly wished that he did. He eventually decided to pull up the elasticised end of his pants to just above his knees to allow him better movement, and he decided he would just have to ignore the fact that his mid-section was bare, caused by his vest stopping halfway down his torso and his pants – despite being high-waisted – stopping partway down his hips.

He probably looked like one of those wannabe fighters some women in demon world were, he thought.

With a grunt of disgust he summoned the oar and took off again. As the body he was in moved ridiculously slowly, flying was his preferred method of travel, and, he thought, he was getting better at handling the oar every time he used it. It was not nearly as easy to control as that woman had made it seem, but he was learning. He flew himself all the way to Mukuro's office, where he disembarked the oar with only a slight stumble, banished it and then barged his way into his boss's office without preamble.

"Hiei?" she said.

Hiei stopped short. She had her back to him and she looked as though she was frozen on the spot. How had she known that it was him? Obviously that orange-haired idiot had said something about the soul-swapping incident, Hiei concluded. Mukuro turned around to face him and for a brief moment looked stupid with surprise.

"Oh…" she said as she regained her composure. "I thought you were someone else. How did you get in here and who the hell are you?"

Hiei grinned.

"Hn, you were right the first time, Mukuro," he said. "Maybe I don't look the same, but I'm still the same on the inside."

"…Hiei?" she said faintly.

He nodded and then crossed the room towards her, ignoring the way she took a wary step back as he drew nearer.

"When I went to the living world, a pair of weak idiots used a weapon on me that took my soul from my body and put it into the body of this weak idiot, and my body is being inhabited by the soul of another weak idiot," he said. "I let that idiot come here and pretend to be me because I thought he could handle a few days here, but I see now that I was wrong, so I've come back, in this body, to continue my role here."

Mukuro opened and closed her mouth several times as though she intended to start answering him, but every time she tried, no sound came out.

"The last few days have been the worst of my existence, which is really saying something," Hiei said, edging closer to her. "But I think you could help me forget about that. What do you say?"

He slid his hands around her neck and pushed his fingers up into her hair, leaning closer to her. In the ferry girl's body he was actually taller than her, which was quite a surreal experience, but he had always subscribed to the idea that "everyone is the same size lying down", and that was the position he intended to get himself and Mukuro into as soon as possible, which would negate any height differences between them.

"You're a woman, Hiei," she said tightly.

"That's never bothered you before," he replied, touching the tip of his nose against hers.

"…It's never happened before," Mukuro pointed out. "You were always a man before."

"I maybe don't have all my usual equipment, but you know well enough that I don't need it to give you want you need."

Mukuro looked momentarily angry, but the look faded and she leaned back slightly, letting her eyes rove over Hiei's newly-acquired body.

"Who is she?" she asked as her eyes met Hiei's again.

"Does it matter?" he asked.

She paused, apparently giving his question some consideration before answering him.

"I suppose not," she eventually conceded. "And I suppose she does have a nice, pert rack."

"Yes she does," Hiei replied, grinning darkly. "And they feel even better than they look: care to try?"

Mukuro gave a small smile and then slid from Hiei's hold, moving over to the door and locking it shut. When she turned back to face Hiei however, her expression had changed and he felt confused because, for the first time ever, she looked a little wary.

"I've never been with a woman before," she said quietly.

"Your first time?" he asked, walking towards her. "Don't worry: I'll be very gentle."

Her face dropped.

"I hope not," she said flatly.

He grinned and pounced at her: though he did not knock her to the ground like he usually did when he launched himself at her, instead she effortlessly caught him in her arms. He started to think that maybe he had made a mistake, but when she started kissing him he gave up thinking and instead just wrapped his legs around her waist and kissed back as aggressively as he could manage.

**

* * *

**

In the next chapter of Ghost Fighter, Eugene decides that it's time to tell his friends the truth about his double life, and so he calls them all round, puts on the unflattering lighter-haired wig and excessive make-up and reveals that he is in fact Hannah Montana, but it's great because he gets the best of both worlds. Jeremiah asks if this makes him a closet slut with daddy issues, double standards and some frankly quite sick ideas about chastity, but he assures the gang that this is not the case: he may be Hannah Montana, but luckily his alter ego is Eugene and not that over-rated, buck-toothed, bushy-haired, raspy-voiced bitch Miley Cyrus. The gang enjoys a temporary reprieve, but doubt returns when Victoria and Eugene pen a terrible, transparent and trashy sitcom about their own lives as "normal" people living in a sprawling Malibu beach house, and they sell the script to Disney, where it earns a time-slot alongside other dubious programming such as "The Wankers of Waverly Place" and "The Suite Taste of Dick".


End file.
